I ^^ade a thread for all ^^y disconnected alien thovghts! A while back, bvt. Yvnno. Or yov don't. I don't know.
Is there someone willing to let me bounce thoughts off them? I have the veeeeery beginnings of a possible rp/tabletop game/dnd sort of thing, and I don't want to spam notifications on here. Also if someone was interested then I might actually DO more world building, and figure this place out Edit: currently it's all sorts of fantasy creatures and stuff, all human intellect level and have their own societies and stuff, but no details
Spoiler Thinking about how to make the Reio more obnoxious, because I want them to be ten thousand obnoxious, arrogant, pretentious douchebags: the Reio Spire is built out of an active volcano. They took an active volcano, maybe even a supervolcano, and extended the walls of the caldera several miles upward to build the Spire, using the heat of the magma to power everything in the Spire including their magic. And everyone on the planet knows that the Spire is built on a volcano, because occasionally the Reio let some of the lava seep out of the walls of the Spire for funsies because they're awful. And everyone knows that if a serious assault is ever launched against the Spire then the Reio would probably set off the volcano and cover the entire planet in ash, and even though the technology exists to prevent that from killing everything it would be really, really inconvenient for everyone involved. Because mage towers are kind of cliche. Also because I've been rereading Embers and the recurring joke about the Fire Nation's tendency to live on volcanoes is hilarious.
An idea I've been poking at that would probably make a pretty cool group RP setting: When gods go (literally) fucking around with humans you get demigods, right? And they're always special because they're half divine, and when they have kids about half the time they're also great heroes because quarter divine, but you only sometimes hear about the grandkids and almost never the great-grandkids unless it's one of those rare lines of godborn heroes and those tend to regularly reintroduce the divinity. So, you have an actual Age of Myth where all the mythologies play out in different parts of the world, and afterwards world history picks up as usual. Magic's a thing but it stops being a BIG thing once the gods start to hang back and let humanity get on with it. But a bunch of people have divine blood- they're not true demigods, it's too watered down- but divinity can't be bred out completely. The world's modern by now, nobody really cares about your greatx70 grandpa being a hero out of legend and you don't get that many goodies for it. You might have a slightly longer lifespan, a resistance to disease, and an unfortunate tendency to think you're immortal. Weakass baby powers connected to whoever you're descended from, like sensing death or being able to talk to ravens. It is weird though, and descendants kind of feel like they don't fit with purestrain humans, so there are a lot of pocket communities. They can always recognize people descended from the same god, and can usually recognize descendants of the same pantheon or other pantheon gods of the same aspect, so there tend to be pantheon communities, and aspect (death, war, love, wisdom, etc) communities. Sometimes, very very rarely, when the gods actually need to interfere, they'll send out a calling to all their decedents. Who sends it out depends on the problem (asshole titans are a Greek pantheon problem, undead leaking is a death god problem of all pantheons, so on) and it's not particularly strong. The ones closest to the source of the problem get hit hardest, which is where the communities are really the most helpful. No one wants to deal with shit on their own, and no one wants to leave a friend high and dry. So their life is 99.999999999% boring except you can herd cats, but every now and then something comes up and fuck, you're on the clock.
Imagine being able to literally herd cats. All cats. Beloved by cats, and beloved by people struggling with their own cats. Eta cat whisperer. Sounds great until you realize what fucking gossips cats would be. And then cats coming to you with their arguments. And presents.
Spoiler There's a, not quite joke exactly, but thing I want to do to one of my characters that I find hilarious because I'm a bad person, and it basically requires her to be somewhat ignorant of human biology. Which is fine, lots of people are ignorant of human biology. Even better is that her view of human biology is quite skewed because she works in a Temple and takes shifts monitoring the genetic designing of new humans. Anyway, at some point she's going to remark that one reason OutWorlders are really creepy is that their feet have an extra toe, and then she gets informed that for most of the existence of the species humans have had five toes on each foot. Basically genetic engineering's gone a little bit nuts in my version of the future and has led to some rather inaccurate beliefs about what it means to be biologically standard human.
Okay so i dunno if this is the right place to put these but Ive recently come up with this whole mini gem thing, probably technically a colony of some sorts, originally. so its ruled by five colours of jades, each have their own planetoid thing, which connect to the center planetoid thing, which is kinda like the whole things capital. where all the important shit happens. Rulers are; White Jade (highest of them, mostly because her colour matches White diamond), Green Jade (snooty, strict, present in her planetoid), Pink Jade (snooty and strict but aloof and rules from afar), Blue Jade (fun and enthusiastic, but still beleives in the hierarchy stuff, very present in her planetoid) Purple Jade (nicest of all of them, considered the bottom of the jades, but is very caring and nice, doesnt really believe in the whole hierarchy) All the planetoids have other gem classes. Guards/Soldiers/Brutes Prophet (singular) Healers Technicians/Scientists/Kindergarteners Grunt Workers Servants (Pearls) All the classes are identical to other gems of their class, except for gem placement, gem shape, and hair (excluding healers) Healers are special, being IDENTICAL except colour schemes, so it is easier to find a healer wherever you are. certain classes have certain gem placements, others just match their ruler's gem placement. (Scientists have their gems on their stomachs, like belt buckles, the 5/1 prophet(s) have them on their head(s) and all pearls have them on their chests) gem shape is determined by ruler, PJ has a heart shaped gem, so all gems of that planetoid have gems that shape. easy identification. (except pearls. they have theirs on their chests, and are always ovals) Class breakdown!! Guards/Brutes/Soldiers the quartzes basically. Big, beefy, muscle. Trusted and respected. leaders in combat closest canon example: Jasper (perfect match) Healers they heal gems. cracked ones. probably also do some more things. but are normal doctors CCE: steven (if he wasnt a hybrid, and a rebel) Technicians/scientists/Kindergarteners the science side, they make new gems, new weapons, new tech, new formulas, inventions CCE: Peridot when she first appeared, refined, sciency, etc Grunt Workers the low soldiers, grunt work. factory workers, low soldiers, swarm type offense CCE: WHat we saw of Ruby in homeworld Servants (pearls) pearls. normal homeworld type pearls. Also there are 1 for each jade, probs kinda special, like.. CCE: Yellow DIamond's pearl (specialty ones) Prophet(s) this is more complicated. the prophet(s) are/is 5 phrophet gems fused together, into the all seeing prophet, Mystic Topaz. they are a well kept secret of the counsel, and they consult them for answers when they cant decide. future sight and stuff, amplified by having 5 fucking gems with future sight. CCE: sapphire5 ----------------------------------------------- the planetoids also have slightly less uniform gems probably, but are generally not SUPER populated. each has its own capitol, and the center planetoid has the big capital (each of the five has like a Canadian province capitol, while the center one is like Ottawa) Planetoids are also very different in terrain. White: almost like tundra, frozen and completely solid, never snows, isnt even really like snow, just solid and cold and barren, almost clinical. always cloudy. rock underneath the ice layer is white-grey-black. Some mountains scattered about over the planet. no caves known. the capitol is in a white bubble to protect from harsh outside weather (it doesnt precipitate, but it is horribly windy and cold) the bulding are stark white, clinical, skyscraper type buildings. Blue: Literal all ocean planet. well, kinda. rocky center, crystaly coraly minecraft villager esc houses on the bottom, gorgeous. water is almost crystal clear, never cloudy up top, enough light to see by at the bottom. rock center is dark blue, getting lighter and brighter the deeper in you get, some caves, not many, but the kindergarten area is proof enough of the rock's colour scheme. Pink: Like this minecraft mod Spoiler: pic but everything is covered in thick fluffy pastel pink clouds, and the ground is pink, trees are pink, water is pastel pink, you get the idea. colour coded planets. since the outer cround is like, floofy pink grass, the deeper you go the darker the rock center, and it actually is pitch black in the center. but noone knows that. BUildings are like crystals, look pretty natural, like the super mario galaxy crystals, but houses inside. Green: Thick foliage EVERWHERE. Gigantic jungle. everything is green. green native flowers (see GJ's hair) wild, untamed, thick vines, the foliage grows very quickly, so the capitol is bubbled as well, rock buildings, but not stone age looking, sky scraper esc, but you cant see them poking off the planet, cause the trees are too damn high. Purple: Rock. giant cave systems. from off world looks kinda like egbert's planets with the cloud over it, but instead of those being clouds, its the outer shell of the planet, and the holes are cave openings. Capitol is somewhere in the center of the planet, and PJ's castle thing is quite like erebor. New comers are BOUND to get lost, whereas purple planet natives know there way around so well. the outer shell is dark purple, but inside that everything is camo esc, different colours mixing in splotches instead of the other planet's gradients. also some splotches glow, and thus provide illumination in the caves. the planetoids were supposed to be about mars-earth size (except center, center is like venus size) but i realize that the whole purple planet seems to know their WLAKING way around this planet seems a bit farfetched. but i think ill go with the have a more spread out population, so their planet is more mapped. the others have their capitol, and some scattered other cities, founded around kindargartens or other necessary structures. purple planet is just like a fucking massive city feel, but is a planet. to move quickly down there are this tube like elevators. they move really fucking fast and bring you down from the viewing platform thing (more later) purple has smaller ones going from place to place in the rock like subways, the rest of the planets dont. green and white are basically unmapped and uninhabited except for their capitols, pink has some scattered cities around, but majority of population lives in the capitol, blue has enough cities around that poputlation is decently spread out (also has a big city on the opisite side of the planet to the capitol, where the original kindergarten for blue planet was) purple is even distribution throughout the planet. (think erebor) Center: Pastel rainbow city made of crystal. In contrast to Pink and blue's crystal buildings (more rough and natural) center is more like Crystal kingdom palace from MLPFiM, and all center's building look like faceted crystal, as supposed to raw crystal. glimmery, glittery, beautiful during the day. center is also not quite natural. it is literally a big floating city in space. it doesnt have a nature, an outside the capital, just the capital, and it isnt round. its like classic castle in the sky castle, but in space. the palace for the counsol is in the center of the city, and down at the bottom (of the whole landform) is the prophet(s) only accesible through secret doors in the counsel room. the prophet stays down inher room, almost at the very bottom of the land form, but there is some rock between their floor and space. the counsol has one of those tube elevator for them to go down to the prophet's room, where they have replicas of their thrones from upstairs, and the prophet has their own cushion they sit on when consulted. ---------------------------------------------------------- I think thats it?? picture time of characters! Spoiler: picture time!! Jades and Pearls (first stuff i did with this idea)^ (ignore the feet at top) White Planet gems, here is the order for all these matching pictures. Ruler-Brute-Scientist-Healer-Pearl green planet gems^ Pink planet gems^ (ignore pink scientist having the only right eye shape, i fucked up, too late to fix, though all scientist faces should look like pink) Blue planet gems^ purple planet gems^ Grunt workers^ Seperated prophets, and Mystic Topaz fusion prophet in center.^ (ignore pink prophet wrong nose. i fucked up to lazy to fix) Mystic Topaz Prophet (AKA: The Prophet) Please ask questions if you are interested in my info dump!! I hope this is cool to anyone other than me! :P
Heyo, worldbuilders. I dunno how many of you go in for the mapping side of worldbuilding, but if you want a procedurally generated planet map that's more realistic than those fractal ones, I found this super cool browser based plate tectonics simulator. Also if you want a tectonic history, you can stop it, export a map, and then start it again. :D
I realized I forgot to elaborate on "viewing platform thing" Centre is connected to the planets either by something like super Mario 3D world world pipes, or like giant ass Golden Gate Bridge kinda things. Center has stations for each planet (like train stations) but the other end of ten bridge/pipe has a viewing platform thing, and the pipe leading down to the capital.
Help I've been watching two continent masses circle around my globe for a few hundred million years This is fantastic.
Continuing on the theme of making everything in my universe really obnoxious, Spoiler The citizens of Enra refer to their government as "We". As in, "To deal with the problem, We legislated several programs to..." It's like how the Christian God is always capitalized even when using pronouns, except with the government, and with the implication that everyone is part of the government since every citizen theoretically has voting rights on everything the government does.
Some info about the Navigator Corps from my setting thingy: Spoiler The HNC, at it is called to distinguish it from the institutions with a similar purpose in other planets (the H stands for "Human") was originally created inside the United Mediterranean Islands military. Several decades later, it is now a non-state sovereign entity similar to the Order of Malta, technically keeping some military traditions like uniforms, but those are not used much. When you're on a ship, the dress code is usually "Please put on some clothes if other people are here. Pants would be nice." Their most well-known symbol looks roughly like this: It was originally a protection sigil, and actually still works as one. It should be noted that members of the HNC are not all navigators (they're actually a relatively large minority). They also train other ship crew, planetside support staff, etc. In fact, it's possible to join them, leave, get a completely-unrelated-to-space-travel job, and still be a card-carrying member. It actually happens a lot, but this is not public information. We'll get to this later. But let's focus on navigators for now. They're practically necessary for long-distance (eg interplanetary) travel, unless you want to spend decades getting to the nearest planet and probably get your ship torn to shreds in the process. They find high-speed currents in interplanetary waters and negociate with the local spirits to enter and exit them safely at the right places, sometimes even slightly altering their paths. This requires, of course, lots of skill in magic. (It should be noted that HNC magic training is considered much safer than the other navigator institutions, as novice magic-users have difficulties controlling their energies and learning the Crafts on Earth significantly reduces the risks due to the anti-magic field.) Most of the population blames this for their observations of navigators being "weirder". They either say that magic is easier to learn if you have mental issues or that it causes them. The truth is far darker... Or so a bunch of conspiracy theorist bloggers would let you believe. They claim the HNC kidnaps particularly vulnerable children from their loving families and use torture and magic mind control* to turn them into slaves to their world domination plans or whatever. They have many pages of testimonies of parents whose kids have been stolen by the Corps. It's usually at this point that most HNC members reading that will start laughing, or fry the computer, or have a meltdown, it depends. The real truth is, the "weird" thing is caused by the fact that much more Corps members are queer, neurodivergent, mentally ill, disabled, etc. compared to the rest of the population. "Loving families?" Sure, if by "loving", you mean "abusive as fuck". You'd think they got rid of this shit in the future, but the world was thrown into chaos by what many people at the time thought was the literal Apocalypse just a bit over a century before, and we're just getting back to early-21th-century levels, socially speaking. Shortly after its creation, the Navigator Corps got taken over by various activists, who turned it into what's basically CPS: the Gets Shit Done version. They don't even kidnap kids, unless they've been informed that their lives are in immediate danger or something. The most common scenario is actually "Teenager realises their parents are abusive, asks for help on a forum or something, gets informed of the HNC and the closest meeting point, leaves the house and joins in, along with their siblings most of the time." There's also a possibility for other people to point out possibly abusive behavior from parents, but they'll do an investigation before doing anything in that case. Once you join, you have the possibility to get a new identity and to cut as many ties with your previous life as you want. The facilities are accessible, inclusive, feature housing, education and therapy adapted to everyone's needs. If you decide to leave for one reason or another, you remain a member of the Corps, and they'll help you go to college, find a job, a house, etc. And some day, you might even end up having a new recruit living with you for a few days until they come pick them up. In the Corps, the mainstream opinion on this is "It might not be the best possible thing that could happen, but it's often the best option people have for now." *(Which can't even happen anyway, magic can essentially be summed up as "force of will altering probability" and you can't affect another's mind with it.)
Spoiler Sudden realization: Due to the nature of magic and mages in my setting, "enchanted object" really just means "psychically-triggerable explosive". This gives me ideas.
Spoiler: i dont even know man everyone is nonbinary at birth from birth to 16-18th birthday, gender presentation is random it is new parents' job to provide children with ample experimentation of each presentation by teen years, children are picking their own presentation, and have probably decided on which box they are going to tick on their decision day it should be noted everyone in this humanoid species is biologically identical and neutral, but on decision day they tick a box and get hormones for their choice no takesy backsies and no options other than female or male you pick your box and get hormones and continue with life, but as that gender nonbinary adults are illegal there is a group of fugitive nonbinaries and agenders who hide from the government in order to stay nb/neutral, they left before their decision day and hiked off into the middle lf nowhere (though some of the group also left after their choice day, and the group is trying to figure out ways to reverse or find a solution to help those people) the story would follow a newly realised nonbinary person, who just gtfo'd outta their hometown to find the group of fugitives plot twist: their old best friend's biggest ambition was to be a cop, and they end up looking for the fugitives I kinda want to write that now huh
@Imoyram Hmmmm, interesting! I like stuff that uses humans-except-not-exactly. Have you read/read a summary of Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness? It's potentially a little squick-inducing, but it's one of the early books featuring a culture where man/woman is arbitrary and people can go either way. I think it would make more sense if the gendering/sexing ceremony is or was quasireligious rather than purely medical: If they are infertile unless they pick a gender, then the gendering has to have been taking place for much of their evolutionary timeline, and almost certainly started before they developed culture. It's pretty easy to come up with a plausible biological explanation for this - maybe some sort of specialized eating pattern triggers going one way or the other (ingesting some minerals? Fasting vs high calorie foods?) or exposure to high quantities of the opposite sex's mating pheromone? There are tons of possibilities out there Alternately, and I think more aptly for your story, the gendering is wholly artificial. In this case, there may be significant misinformation about the actual purpose of gendering. For example, fully intact individuals might grow to be significantly more physically powerful, or are aggressive compared to gendered individuals. To gender an individual, one of two hormone-producing organs is knocked out (one which produces the 'man/male' appearance aspects and one which produces the 'woman/female' ones). This might be done chemically (as in chemical castration) or through surgical removal. (Also an advantage of this version: individuals don't lose the actual male/female reproductive organs, so unless you want to write it in there's no reason for great social stigma against same-gender relationships.) ___________________________________________________________ I have some Alien Gender stuff with one of my projects. They're aliens proper - physically and mentally like a parrot with arms instead of wings; very social and good at learning new languages. Sex/gender-wise, they have XX, XY, and YY individuals. XY have fully functional versions of both reproductive systems and an intermediate body type. XX have a nonfunctional male organ, but are more muted colors, get a lot bigger than XY, and have a shorter gestation period. YY have a nonfunctional female system, are small, and are brightly colored. They are also much better at climbing and short/distance running. (Warning for fictional sexism!) Historically, YY were considered to be less desirable because of their inability to bear young. As a result, while their existence is evolutionary favored (XY have lower fertility because their body is running both systems) culturally they were treated very badly. First contact gets made, BAM! Culture clash with the humans of 2101, who've worked out most of the sex/gender issues by then. (It's... a work, heavily in progress.)
Ok gonna ramble about my magical girl setting I have kicking around in my head. It probably wears its influences on its sleeve. Also a lot of this is summarizing the backstory as well, sorry if this is the wrong thread. Spoiler: Summary of World Building Basically, the creator goddess got lonely and made herself nine daughters to help her rule the universe- except one of them, the eldest, she loved more than the others and made her heiress and gave her more power. The rest of her daughters got jealous and conspired to kill them both, with only Justice abstaining from the plot. However, when the daughters had nearly won the fight, the mother hid her heiresses soul in the well of human souls to be reborn, and split herself into a 101 shards that carried her power, telling her daughters that none of them could use one on their own but whoever gathered all of them would gain the crown of the cosmos, the sun, and get all the power of her mother and sisters. The sisters all turned against each other, and the youngest, who had masterminded the plan, felt guilty and was manipulated by Justice into helping her rule. Since the daughters couldn't use the shards themselves, and a single human soul couldn't handle the strain, they bonded the shards to groups of humans, usually 4 or 5, making a team that shared the shards power and could fight to defend the territory and find more shards. In order to gain more territory, they use their remaining power to corrupt certain things, creating monsters that attack the other territories and fight their sister's warriors. Since they are all massively depowered they can't really assume open control over humans, especially since that would make them one hell of a target. Besides, they're all more focused on gaining power than using it right now. They tend to choose young people as their warriors, and young girls, for reasons of younger people being easier to manipulate and convinced to throw their lives away for "fate", but that's not the case 100% of the time. They usually don't even tell their warriors the real story of what's going on, just that there are shards of power hidden and the monsters want to steal them and use them for evil purposes. Most think that they are the only magical team around, although with the rise of technology the existence of other magical teams is becoming harder and harder to hide. There are nine of the shards that are more powerful than the others, and that choose their own wielders who are able to single handedly bear their power. These are made from the goddess's love for her daughters, and the most powerful one, her love for her eldest daughter, will only work for someone with the eldest's soul. This whole thing went down long enough that while most world religions are based on them, they have diverged a lot, although all tend to feature a major betrayal and the death of the leader god. Some worship the mother goddess alone and see the daughters as human champions that defeated her, some split apart the daughters in a multitude of smaller gods, some don't really believe in gods at all. Nobody really sees them as similar, although some religious scholars have noted similarities. The daughters all have many aspects, but their primary ones are First- Princess of the Gods, Goddess of the Sun Second- Goddess of Justice Third- Goddess of Water, and also Knowledge Fourth- Goddess of Fire, and also Emotions Fifth- Goddess of Metal, Stone, and Technology Sixth- Goddess of Nature and Animals Seventh- Goddess of Birth Eighth- Goddess of Death- together with Birth they also controlled the cycle of reincarnation Ninth- Goddess of the Sky, namely the Moon and Stars, also kinda Wind Spoiler: More Telling the Story Once, there was a goddess who created the universe, the world, and all of the life within it. She got tired of running it all by herself, however, so she made nine daughters to help be manage it. Eight of these daughters governed aspects of the world, but one, the oldest, was loved beyond all the others, and the goddess was raising her to become her heiress. The other daughters grew jealous of their sister's greater power and share of their mother's love, and grew resentful of their mother, who so readily picked favorites, who created them just so she would have less work to do. Seven of them conspired to kill their sister and their mother and steal their power for themselves, splitting it equally, ruling the universe as equals. The eighth, as the second oldest and the goddess of justice, was unsure of which side to back, and so decided to remove herself entirely and let the situation play out as it would. Finally, their chosen day came. They first came down on their eldest sister with all of their combined might, and she was mortally wounded. The distress of her oldest daughter summoned the goddess, and she fought her children viciously, but she had given up enough of her power in creating them, and they were so united in their will, that she found the fight much more difficult than she anticipated- and when she was tired and gravely injured, she realized she couldn't win. With the last of her strength she sent her eldest's soul far away, hidden within the well of human souls, and she laid one last Truth upon the world- her power would be split into a hundred and one different shards, and none of her daughters would be able to use the shards separately, but she who assembled all of the shards would gain the crown of the cosmos, and become ruler over all the others- but until one ruled, all would be far, far weaker, with none of the power and authority over the world that she had given them, only what their own souls could muster. With that, she split apart, the pieces of her flying across the world, and her daughters turned on each other immediately. The youngest, the goddess of the sky, who had been the mastermind behind the plot, was horrified- she had thought she and her sisters had stood united, and yet they had turned on each other and on her so quickly. She ran away from the fighting, only to meet the goddess of justice, now the oldest. Justice convinced her that their other sisters couldn't be trusted at all- not with power, and certainly not to rule. Justice told her that she had committed a great sin, and that the only way she could redeem herself was to help Justice become ruler, for truly she was the only one who would rule the world fairly and without corruption. Justice and Sky had always been close, and Sky was so destroyed with guilt and horrified at the actions of her other sisters that she agreed. The daughters soon found some of these shards, in small and hidden places. Just as their mother had said, they were unable to use them, but soon they found that humans could, and although an individual human's soul burned up far too quickly to use it effectively, if they bound a single shard to a group of humans, it's burden was spread out, and the humans could reach a small fraction of the power of their mother. Although they didn't have enough power to rule over humans, they all knew there were other ways to gain power. Soon, they had all come to the same system- create teams of empowered humans loyal to them- usually young, because it was easier to convince the young they were doing some great good and easier to convince them to give everything, including their lives, and usually girls, because the goddesses saw femininity as power. They used their teams to establish territories, and to search for shards within their own land. However, their fighters were too valuable to risk sending out to gain more territory. Instead, they started to use their soul power to create monsters, each having their own way of corrupting that within the world to dark deeds. With two goddesses working together, Justice and Sky quickly gained more territory than the others. Justice had Sky use almost all of her souls power to create powerful monsters, leaving her so weak that she couldn't leave the palace that Justice had built. Through her efforts, they learned of nine special shards, the crystals, more powerful than the others and yet far softer on the human soul- enough that one human could bare one crystal. However, these crystals were picky, wanting only to bond with certain humans. In order to attract as many young girls as possible, since she had the reach, Justice turned her palace into whatever would draw the most people at the time- a temple, a monastery, a school- whatever it needed to be. With her store of shards she was able to create a veritable army, all loyal to her, all kept insecure and scared and hopeful enough that they would rather die then leave her. With this army, and with Sky using almost all of her soul's power, they were able to collect all nine of the crystals. The other daughters were forced into fighting a defensive war- all of their warriors against eight of Justice's. Eight, because one crystal was far more selective then the others, and never chose a bearer- until one day, a girl came to Justice's Academy, a girl with a kind heart and an iron will, a girl who Sky fell in love with instantly. When the crystal selected her Justice became obsessed with keeping this girl under her thumb. Although at first the girl was loyal, soon she began to see through the layers of artifice, the lie that their cause was just. She started to try and convince Sky to run away with her, thinking that Sky, who was still expending almost all of her soul's power, was a human student just like her. Sky, scared and confused, ended up telling Justice, not wanting to loose either of them- but Justice did not react well. She attacked the girl, and though the girl put up and admirable mental fight, Justice was able to defeat her and destroy her will, turning her into a puppet- and the girl's crystal turned dark and corrupted. Then, out of fear of others turning away from her, she did the same to the other chosen of the crystals. Sky could no longer convince herself that her sister truly sought Justice anymore, but she didn't know what to do. She had spent so many years with her sister, and she had still not redeemed herself, and she told herself that no matter what Justice did, on her own Sky would surely do worse. However, her hand was soon forced. There were many students at the school, and while those chosen by the crystals were most powerful and respected, many others were also warriors of shards. There was one student, the younger sister of the chosen wielder of the crystal of fire, who found out about the magical purpose of the school, despite not being a chosen warrior. She was young, and bratty, and often cruel, but she had an unwavering sense of loyalty. She and Sky hated each other, Sky because the girl reminded her of how she had been once, the girl because she was jealous of how easily Sky kept silent, and demure, and ladylike. However, once the girl noticed her sister and the rest of the crystals' chosen acting strangely, and Sky acting odd as well, she confronted Sky, and got Sky to tell her what was going on. That night, the girl broke into the dorms of the crystals' chosen, and stole the crystals from them as they slept. Justice immediately sent Sky to deal with her, as well as the rest of the warriors, but the girl was able to hide from them. Finally Sky found her at a crack in the walls- but Sky had put up a shield to trap her. The girl pleaded with Sky to help her escape, but Sky was frozen with indecision, for long enough that the rest of the school's warriors caught up. They destroyed the girl, mortally wounding her, and the crystals' chosen started to reclaim their rightful weapons, starting with the bearer of that more peculiar shard, the one Sky was still in love with. Sky didn't allow herself time to think. She grabbed the girl, and all of the crystals, save the one that had already been reclaimed, and she ran. Once she had escaped she collapsed, exhausted-but the girl was nearly already dead. Sky used the last of her power to heal her enough to survive, then carried her out of Justice's territory, placing her in a hospital, hoping that would leave her out of harms way. While the girl still slept Sky left, hoping to find a way to truly reverse the state of the world and of her family. However, she was absolutely powerless now- there was nothing she could do. She wandered around, unsure of what to do, almost convincing herself to return to Justice now that she had saved the girl's life. Just when she was about to turn back, a voice called out to her, asking her if she wanted to get out of the rain. The voice belonged to the owner of a small, hole in the wall cafe, a tough old woman. She brought Sky inside, gave her something to eat and drink, and asked her if she needed a ride home. Sky, who was tired and weak and lonely, told the woman as much as she could without telling the truth. She told her that she had lived with her sister, but that she had seen her sister do some stunningly cruel things, and she had run away and had nowhere else to go. The woman offered to take her in, giving her room and board in exchange for working at the cafe. Sky was terrible with people, had never made food or coffee, and barely knew what a cafe was. She agreed. By the time the old woman died ten years later, she had left the cafe and the flat above it to Sky in her will. Sky, now with experience, strength, and hope, took the crystals out of their hiding place. She had a plan.
Hey, if anyone's still into this thread I'm trying to work out how kitsune should be related to werewolves.
Okay, been meaning to infodump for @Aondeug about my "kitchen sink" d&d setting for a couple days now. if people are interested, i might split it out into it's own thread? So the basic idea for this world was to have something that i can just pick it up and run a d&d game in it and more or less anything anybody wants to play fits or can be squeezed into a corner somewhere, while still having it's own original setting stuff and be able to fit all my weird bugaboos and ideas and anything i come across somewhere and want to steal. There are three ages, because of course there are. What do you want from me, not ganking cool tolkein shit? The First Age is very much not tolkienian, though. It's more or less the dawn of civilization -- you've progressed from farming villages to walled city-states with god-kings and maybe some budding pantheons. Everything is very early mesopotamian. There are no legendary weapons or ancient ruins or even many high-level spells, because they haven't been made yet. This is the only age where races are really monocultures -- each one only really controls a single city-state and a fairly small slice of land around it. These city states are all pressed up against the ocean to the east, on a narrow slice of fertile, tamed, land. Everything else is the wilderness, and it hates you. Every leaf, every bud, every pebble and grain of sand hates you with a ferocity that is impossible for any civilized being to muster. Deep in the forest, Echidna spawns monsters and legions of great beasts to send against civilization -- the mighty owlbears, the ferocious chimaeras, the manticores, the Nemean lion, and all the great beasts that were sundered into the lesser animals of later ages. Somewhere deep in the wilderness she raises her mightiest offspring, her son the Tarrasque, who is her last and best hope to crush civilization altogether. Also on Echidna's side are the Elder Trolls, the Chaos Dragons, and a whole bunch of Old-Kingdom-style Free Magic nasties. This is also, incidentally, the only age with any sort of alignment system. Go on, guess what it is. Anybody playing in the first age can totally fight Echidna, by the way. She has a cool two million hp, only takes 1000 damage from save-or-die shit (on account of killing even like a hundred cubic meters of her flesh isn't gonna slow her down much) and has a breath weapon with a range in kilometers and a save vs. atavism gaze attack. Aesthetically, the First Age is super pulpy, all lurid colors and crazy bullshit. Echidna has probably spawned laser dinosaurs. Your dwarf can make a legendary raygun to go with your legendary sword, if you want. "Because First Age" is pretty much always a valid argument. On the civilization side we have: -the dragons, led by their God-King the Platinum Dragon Bahamut and his king-consort the Orichalcum (who still needs a name). These are all true dragons, so none of that traditional d&d colors-and-breath-weapons taxonomic shit, that's strictly the province of the lesser drakes of later ages. Every dragon gets a unique coloor descriptor and breath weapon, and probably a cool epithet, too. Literally the only restriction on breath weapons is no repeats -- you could play a first age dragon with a breath weapon of little plastic dinosaurs if you wanted to. They have probably the smallest population and land of any of the races of the First Age, breeding slowly and almost all residing within their many-pillared city. Very individualistic culturally, as one would expect from a city of fucking dragons, with a lot of huge egos and scheming politicking. There's no serious attempts at Bahamut's place, though, and he seems to be generally very well respected, with even the most devious schemers contenting themselves with fighting over the political rungs immediately below him. -the dwarves, ruled under by their Low King on the Deepest Throne. The dwarven city-state has some serious tower of babel shit going on, as a giant conical stepped pyramid reaching as high as the mountains, with a mirrored half delving as deep below the earth as it rises above. The Deepest Throne is ensconced at the very deepest apex, and looks up via a complex system of lenses to see first the entire city, then the cloud city of the sky-dwarves, then the rest of the world stretching out above it, displayed as the interior of a colossal cylinder. Dwarven maps of this time follow this convention, and are inscribed on the inside of metal tubes. -the sky-dwarves, ruled over by the High Queen, the Low King's spouse and counterpart. (by convention, all dwarves are male and all sky-dwarves female, which is why dwarves have normatively mono-gendered societies in later ages). the sky-dwarves have mastery over clouds, and carve them as easily and strongly as their counterparts carve stone. Their city is a colossal bicone of stormcloud, armed with lightning, as large as the dwarven stone-city and connected to it at its lowest apex and the stone-city's highest. It stretches high enough that is can be seen far into the wilderness, and it's rumored that Echidna hates it above all the other civilized cities for this. -the kuo-toa, the fish people, both by trade and by appearance. They do not have a single unified city-state or leader, instead controlling various fishing towns up and down the ocean coast and ruled by a broadly distributed priesthood. They have a lobster-god in the deep sea, unlike most of the other races with their god-kings and pantheons and shit. -the giants, speaking of pantheons. They are the only race with multiple city-states, and they keep making more. Vaguely hellenic, very given to monumental architecture. They share a growing pantheon of Titans between all their city-states, although some Titans are considered to favor certain city-states as patrons or to dislike certain others, and similarly different city-states have different priorities in terms of worship. Lots of inter-god drama and inter-city-state politics and attempts to write the former in line with the latter with varying degrees of success. Far and away the most culturally diverse and widespread group of the First Age, which is weird because giants are best known for being homicidally (collosicidally?) antisocial in later ages. -the librarians. (as per Zak S.) they live in forest temple-libraries full of living snakes and carefully cataloged snakeskins, and generally have way too much truck with wild animals and trees to be entirely trustworthy and are kinda on the hinterlands of civilized lands and are literally halfway into the forest and my mom's uncle's friend met a dragon who said they don't get attacked by Echidna's beasts?? jussaying. They are pretty much the closest thing the First Age has to offer to Neutral. The whole breeding the Great Glistening Book quasi-apocalyptic theology thing mentioned in the Zak post hasn't really started up in the First Age, though. Instead, they worship a literary canon which is also by definition a bunch of literal non-sapient snakes. It's a mess. What the fuck, Librarians. -the seventh people. either something went horrifically and retrocausally wrong somehow, or the First Age had a city populated entirely by moving gashes in reality. both options are honestly about equally likely.
