Tag Archive | worldbuilding

February is World Building Month. Day Four: Faerie Apoc

piratekitten has declared February world-building month.

Every day in February, I will answer one question about any one of my settings.

The question post is here, please feel free to add more questions!

The fourth question comes from lilfluff and is for the Faerie Apocalypse

After the apocalypse what has happened the former ‘blindness’ that kept regular humans from noticing the fae. Did it go away for good? Just temporarily weakened? Never really went away and people only noticed because of how blatant the Returned were being?

For a reference to the Blindness of the Gods see here.

First, what is/was The Blindness of the Gods?

The colloquial expression is used to describe the fact that true humans – and those Faded with very very thin fae blood – cannot see Ellehemaei for what they are. Mask up or down, these people see only a human; their mind rewrites everything else to fit within a normal world.

It was lain in place when the Gods left this world, back in the late BC’s. It was meant as a protection for humans – if they could not see the strangeness, the gods reasoned, they could not be intimidated, bullied, or awed into following those fae that remained as gods, as leaders, or as masters. It also served to protect the fae; even a god can be taken down by angry enough, clever enough, humans, especially in a group. Their descendants, especially the young ones, could be taken down with comparatively no effort.

Because it only had sporadic effacacy on mixed-blood humans, and because someone could be entirely human except this ability to see unMasked fae for what they were, the fae tended, as a whole, to remain Masked when in mixed company, even before the war.

The sundering that brought the departed gods back to Earth also broke this blindness. And this time, there were no older, authoritarian gods to put it back. After the Return, the Blindness of the Gods was entirely gone, and fae who wished to hide (most of those who wanted to survive!) had to rely on their own Masks.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/656585.html. You can comment here or there.

February Is Coming!

Jan28

And I plan on answering a world-building question each day in February. But I haven’t nearly enough yet~

Ask Here…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/646329.html. You can comment there.

February: World-Building Month

Jan22

piratekitten has declared February world-building month.

So!

here’s a landing page with most of my universes on it.

I will take the first 28 questions (before February, no more than 4/person and no more than 5/any given ‘verse) about setting and answer 1/day for the entirety of February.

Go!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/642264.html. You can comment here or there.

Looking for a Term

Nov21

I’ve started writing Inner Circle. (“…and a gladiator on top..”)

They like their titles (because I like my titles), and in the case of those who shortcut the Ladder (which is social upward mobility with a system), they gain a title/name showing that service.

Gladiator is easy.

What do you call someone who does it by agreeing to essentially debt/bond servitude for a period of xx years?

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/605279.html. You can comment here or there.

Worldbuilding SFWA Style: Reiassan

Oct31

From this link, from the sfwa.org
I. The World
B. Not Earth at All

How does this world differ physically from earth? Is it the same size (same density, same gravity), same ratio of land/water, same atmosphere, etc.? Does it have more than one sun or moon? Rings? Are there spectacular constellations/comets, etc. visible at night or by day?

The world is slightly smaller than Earth (just a few miles in diameter), and a similar density and gravity, and is generally earthlike.

It has two moons, one large and one small. It also has brilliantly stars in a sky full of light.

Are there non-human inhabitants of this planet (elves, dwarves, aliens)? If so, how numerous? How openly present? What areas do they occupy?

Nope, there are only humans.

How are the continents laid out? If there is more than one moon/sun, how does this affect winds, tides, and weather generally?

Reiassan and (Homeland) are both in the Northern/Eastern Hemispheres. Reiassan is to the west of (Homeland) continent by about ¼ of the world; there is another large land mass on the Western hemisphere, and several smaller land masses in the southern hemisphere.

Reiassan is a continent about the size of South America; Homeland is a mass equivalent to Eurasia in size, as is the Western continent.

How much land is there, and how much of it is habitable?

There’s approximately 50,000,000 square miles (129,499,000 sq. km). About 35% of this is habitable (neither mountain nor desert).

Is the axial tilt and orbit the same — i.e., does the world have the same seasons and same length of year as Earth?

Seasons are similar to Earth’s, although they count them differently in Reiassan; they consider the rainy season, the warm season, and the cold season.

II. Physical and Historical Features

A. General

In which geographical areas will the story take place? How much ground will the story cover? What are the most striking features of landscape, climate, animals, etc. in this area? How will these features affect travel time, communication, etc.?

Both extant stories take place on the continent of Reiassan, a sort of comma-shaped continent the size (approx.) of South America.

Reiassan is a continent wrinkled and gouged by glacial activity; it looks like a wrinkled napkin. This makes travel difficult and sometimes prohibitive.

Agriculture tends towards crops which can be grown on slopes – more root crops and less grain crops, for one. There are fewer trees and much of what exist are scrublike and twisted; buildings are mostly stone-created, with wood being rare and generally used for accent, not for construction.

The tip of the continent, the part that was formerly Bitrani, is warmer and flatter, although it has a great deal of swampland. Trees similar to the mangrove are prevalent here, and rice is one of their main crops.

The seas on either side of the continent are very good for fishing.

Into Lanamer crosses most of the continent, heading from near the Bitrani city of Onikanin, less than 1/3 of the tail up from the Southern tip of Reiassan, up to the Calenyena city of Lanamer, at the point where the dot of the comma reaches the tail.

Edally Academy takes place primarily in Edally Academy at Ileltedez, a coastal city South of Lanamer.

If there are non-human inhabitants, are there any areas they particularly claim as their own (e.g., dwarves traditionally live underground, usually in mountains)?

Still no non-humans.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/594255.html. You can comment here or there.

Worldbuilding SFWA Style: Reiassan

Oct30

From this link, from the sfwa.org

A. Basics

Nature, physics all work the same as in real life, although use of sira/aether can speed up/slow down/nudge these laws’ effects.

The world in which Reiassan is on is slightly smaller in diameter than Earth. It is a Class M planet, with an Earthlike water-to-land ratio. The flow of sira through the entire planet has led to some differences; i.e., the trench between Reiassan and the homeland continent has what could be called massive fire demons.

In Edaly Academy and Into Lanamer, we are only on one continent. The people there emigrated from another single continent, which originally had three major ethnic groups (often referred to as West Coast People, Blondies, and proto!Calenyena); two of those groups made up the majority of the immigrants.

Thus, the ethnic makeup on Reiassan is determined mostly by settlement patterns in the 1750 years since landfall on this continent. The Calenyena are short, wide-hipped, and dark of hair, skin and eyes; the Bitrani are taller, more squarely built, and pale of hair, skin, and eye. Many regions have mid-range mixes common, and the east coast has a small, genetically isolated population who have curly hair and copper eyes.

Undetermined, but there are at least about 3500 years of human history between homeland continent and Reiassan.

Good question!

o Where does magic power come from: the gods, the “mana” of the world (as in Larry Niven’s “Warlock” stories), the personal willpower or life force of the magician, somewhere else? Is magic an exhaustible resource? If a magician must feed his spells with his own willpower, life-force, or sanity, what long-term effects will this have on the health and/or stability of the magician? Do different races/species have different sources for their magic, or does everybody use the same one?

Magic comes from the sira within the earth, which theory holds it, is formed when two things rub together.

Magic is controlled in Into Lanamer mostly with willpower and stamina, and in Edally Academy with mechanisms and devices.

There are no nonhuman races yet determined.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/593217.html. You can comment here or there.

Notes on Sira and Aether for Steam!Calenta/Edaly Academy

Oct26

On Sira and Aether

Sira is the ancient word for the force that underlies the world. It’s actually a word from the ancient Tabersi (the predecessors of the Bitrani) that was sound-shifted into Calenyen; the Bitrani say shira..

The word sira fell out of favor around 1400 R, or approximately 400 years after the Rin and Girey story; the Academy story takes place in 1750 R (after the discovery of the continent of Reiassan). People didn’t so much stop believing in sira as start feeling that their explanations for it were too credulous, too superstitious, and too rooted in the very-powerful Temples of the Three. They wanted to understand more.

Enter the concept of aether.

This is another Bitrani word. The Calenyena call it aatur, simply using the Bitrani word shifted for a sound they find comfortable. Some scholars call it iezhyetar (from Iezhet, air, and ietar, power), but the term has not gained a great deal of popularity; ancient Bitrani sounds as if it has more gravitas to their ears.

As the scholars in 1750 R understand the aether (whatever they call it), the aether is an underlying force of the universe. It exists wherever two pieces of the world rub together, and can be harvested from these areas with the careful application of mechanical apparati or the very, very careful application of straight concentration and mental fortitude.

Very few scholars approve of the second method, however, because it has a feel very much like that of magic, and everyone knows that magic is bunk.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/590530.html. You can comment here or there.

This one at least moved past the architecture for a bit…

Oct22

Unnamed Kink Setting Worldbuilding 2: Inside and Outside

Travel between cities is rare; caravans that do so carry twice as many guards as they do passengers, and are prohibitively expensive. To travel on your own, or with a couple guards, is to risk, in order of likelihood:

* Attack by “bandits;” groups who live in tiny walled settlements and range out as far as they dare in search of prey, whether human or otherwise.

* Death by thirst or starvation if your supplies run out, if you get turned around in one of the wild storms.

* Death by wild storm.¹

* Transformation or twisting – or engulfment – by a Lantern.²

* Attack by a Creature³ or a mundane beast.

* Being shot down by the guards of your goal city.

The cities are the primary population centers; farmers live outside the walls, but close enough to flee within them if any of the aforementioned threats attack. Bandits, too, the occasional marauder, and a few tiny, terrifying settlements also exist outside cities, but they account for less than 10% of the total population of the continent.

Inside the cities, the population follows a structure as tiered as the concentric walls, and, indeed, marked by and inspired by those walls.

2. A Lantern is someone who lost control of their magic, and are now simply a conduit for the power. The power spurts from them in unpredictable bursts, or sometimes just flows out until the human at the core is entirely lost. The only plus is that Lanterns are generally stationary.

3. A Creature is, well, a creature, one that has been warped by proximity either to a place of power⁴

4. A place of power is assumed to be an opening from the magic to our plane of existence, although nothing but magic ever comes through.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/587761.html. You can comment here or there.

Worldbuilding: The Academy

Oct22

The Empress Edalleddallendu Academy of Higher Learning at Ilelteddez

The Edally Academy was begun approximately one thousand years ago, in the time of the Emperor Eleddeltendel, who started four such academies around the country, naming them all after his ancestors. It occupies a place just outside the old walls of Ilelteddez, (ocean-on-land, seaport), a coastal city between the Arran Cities and Lannamer.

When it was first built, it was a single tower with three outbuildings. As the school expanded, three more towers were built around the first tower.

About 500 years ago, the original tower was torn down. Its foundation serves as the basis of a central courtyard now.

Around the courtyard, nine towers reach 6-1/2 stories into the air. These towers were originally both classroom and dormitory; now they serve as dorm space only.

A ring of buildings, connected by archways, circle the towers. The buildings are about 3-1/2 stories tall, and where their roofs touch the towers, a walkway has been built.

Those buildings now serve as primary classroom buildings for the school, however, the first story of each is now given over to teacher & staff apartments.

Outside of those are another ring of buildings, usually about 1 story tall. They serve as adjunct classrooms, outbuildings, and the like.

The towers themselves narrow as they go up, and are constructed of red stone with grey sandstone accents. They are built around a wide, round central chimney, which vents to the sky. Their windows are narrow, and only in recent years have the Art students begun replacing all of the oiled-cloth windows with stained glass to allow some light – and less air – in.

A spiral staircase circles the chimney all the way up; at the landing for each floor there is a small student lounge around a fireplace. The dormitory rooms ring the floor; smaller rooms on the top floor, larger rooms on the bottom. The school has a drop-out/failure rate such that, while it admits 18 students to each House each year, only nine to 12 graduate.

The first-year dorms – at the top – are three to a room, consisting of a fold-up bed, a fold-down desk, a folding chair, and the Calenyena equivalent of a trunk (rather like a garment bag) each. Bedding and upholstery is in House colors.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/587250.html. You can comment here or there.

Deaths in the Faerie Apocalypse, Part IV

Jun27

A discussion in several parts of the near-extinction of humanity in my Faerie Apocalypse Setting.
The Gods’ Return: here
The Terms Used: here

The returned gods killed a large number of people by direct or indirect smiting; in the process of claiming the cities, they killed an exponentially larger number with collateral damage. .

The returned gods, fighting with the Ellehemaei that had stayed on Earth/been born here, killed hundreds of thousands of people with collateral damage. When the armies of the world got in on the fracas, cities fell.

Gods died, too; the armies getting involved began to turn the tides. The military and the Ellehemaei who stayed working in conjunction defeated (slowly, and with a great deal of collateral damage) the returned gods, sending those who survived back to Ellehem and sealing the gates.

This took two hard years of fighting, during which countless cities across the globe were destroyed, as well as roads, farms, lakes, and… well, large bits of everything else.

The Army used conventional weapons. The fae, on the other hand, used everything they had. They turned roads to water. They turned deer into monsters. They simply Destroyed things that were in their way – airplanes, buildings, the aforementioned lakes.

Those who did not die from direct attack, from being in the path of a weapon, from being in the way of something that had once been a deer… they faced longer-term problems.

The roads to most cities were impassible by the end of 2012. (By the end of 2011, things had already started to decline.) Food could not get in, nor gas. Looking at NYC in the days and weeks after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 gives us a good idea of the amount of damage that can cause on its own. And with an overtaxed Red Cross and a completely stretched-to-the-limit government… disease and starvation set in.

People had been dying by the hundreds of thousands. They started dying, now, by the tens of millions.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/546168.html. You can comment here or there.

Alder's Grove Fiction

The Worlds of Lyn Thorne-Alder

Tag Archive | worldbuilding

February is World Building Month. Day Four: Faerie Apoc

February Is Coming!

February: World-Building Month

Looking for a Term

Worldbuilding SFWA Style: Reiassan

Worldbuilding SFWA Style: Reiassan

Notes on Sira and Aether for Steam!Calenta/Edaly Academy

This one at least moved past the architecture for a bit…

Worldbuilding: The Academy

Deaths in the Faerie Apocalypse, Part IV