pokimono

General World-building: - The Sun Empire is roughly the same size as real-world Japan, despite being a different shape. It’s comprised of the main island, upon which all the current major villages stand, and a variety of smaller islands (for instance, the old Villages of Crystal Lake and Sky Village resisted on their own islands before being destroyed in the Kami War).

- Architecture is based in the Edo or Heian-era styles.

People: - It’s correct to refer to “gijinka” as “gijinka” or simply “people.” In the Pokimono universe, human people do not exist, and gijinka people have completely taken that place in the Pokimono world hierarchy.

- Related to the above, people in the Pokimono world recognize regular/animal/beast-like pokemon the same way humans recognize animals in the real world. For many they help with labor, work, companionship, and even food. Even a Tauros gijinka wouldn’t think twice about using their Tauros to help work their fields, or even eat Tauros meat. It’s easiest to think of it in terms of humans and monkeys/apes. We recognize that we share a most common ancestor, and many human scientists (and regular people) make a big fuss over ape intelligence and human similarities, and yet we’re still comfortable classifying them as animals, and some cultures even consume monkey meat. It’s no more taboo than that.

- In general, bug-type gijinka rarely live past 30 years of age, and very rarely past their early 30s. However, if they manage to live past 34 or 35, it’s very likely that they will live to have as full a lifespan as any other gijinka.

- Dragon-types, on the other hand, often have very long lifespans — much longer than the average person, even by hundreds of years. And of course, the famous fox-like pokemon (Zoroark, Delphox, and the famous Ninetales), who are rumored to live for hundreds or even a thousand years!

Plants and Animals: - The rapidash and zepstrika of the Sun Empire are descended from those imported from the Jade Imperium centuries ago. Unlike the stout, sturdy steeds of the Floating Plains, the horse-like mounts of the Sun Empire are skinny and elegant but strong, suitable for everything from riding into battle to traveling between villages.

- In some of the more secluded, secretive tribes and towns in the Sun Empire, it has been tradition to ride Gogoat instead of horse-like pokemon for centuries. They managed to keep these pokemon—which the rest of the Sun Empire has not seen until recently—a secret because these villages are so secluded.

- Berries are an integral part of not only healing in the Sun Empire, but in food as well. Pecha berries, for instance, are very popular with children as a sweet snack, and is used as a sweetener in many traditional desserts.

Japanese Myth-Inspired World-building: - Swanna, Fairy-type, and other “elegant” gijinka filling the role of the Tennyo—beautiful, etherial maidens who serve as messengers to the mortal world from Arceus. They are rarely seen by mortal eyes, but it is said that if you can manage to steal their elegant, feathered sashes, you can force one to be your wife. No mortal woman can ever be as lovely, beautiful, and graceful as a Tennyo taken for a wife.

- Long ago, two poor farmers wished for child they could never have. Then, one night, on the night of a perfectly clear, full moon, they found a small Clefairy child on their porch. With no one to care for her, they raised her as their own. The legend goes that, when she was grown, she was a woman of impossible, surpassing beauty, and everyone for miles around desired her. Eventually, it was revealed that she had come from the moon, where legend says all clefairy originate, and in the end, she leaves her earthy parents and life behind to return to her true home.

- Ghosts, the Yurei of legend. They are terrifying ghost-types who have found only misery in both life and the afterlife, and seek to harm the living as revenger for their misfortune. They may be ghost-types, but never mistake them for the average ghost-type gijinka living in your Village (though it is said that ghost-type gijinka are less afraid of them, and of other haunted places, than other types).

- Legendary heroes! Not LEGENDARIES, of course, but legends of famous gijinka abound throughout the history of the Sun Empire; for instance, the small boy who went on an adventure with a poochyena, unphesant and aipom to defeat a demonic sableye!