Downfall Timeline; the Tragedy and the Triumph (LOZ AU)

Gerudo were, when the world began, the flickering fire from Din's flaming hair and were called the Daughters of Din. These flames would become independent beings of pure firepower, but they still served Din's will. They are the ones who helped shape the earth, especially Death Mountain. Once they finished making the world, and the goddesses left, á la Ocarina of time lore, the Gerudo remained as her daughters, calling Din their "Great Mother".

Unfortunately, as they were literally fire, they burnt (consuming often) everything they touched. This was fine around the Gorons, but lots of others have a tendency to BURN when exposed to fire.

So, the peoples begged the goddesses for aid, and they were moved to what would become gerudo desert; a sun blasted land. During the night, when temperatures dropped, the gerudo all grouped together, to dance at the spirit temple (flame looks like it dances).

This made the people living nearby attracted to the desert to watch and see them dance. Eventually, love happened.

Again the peoples and gerudo turned to the goddesses. And, so the goddesses Farore and Nayru both poured a bit of their power into them and turned them from living flames to peoples of their own right. They took the name "Gerudo" (which I used as shorthand) after what other peoples called them, the 'dancing fires' in the language of the spirits.

Taking after their Great Mother in all respects, their skin was sun dark of sand brown, with firey red hair that seemed to move and dance behind them, and all of them were vais (capable of bearing children.)

Quick explanation what a voe is vs a vai; it's not binary as man and woman. Voes can be any gender, they just have to be able to impregnate a vai. All people are voes until they prove they cannot impregnate a vai. So, while a trans person who has functioning testicals would be considered a voe, it's not equivalent to male. However since this is a society of vai for vai, a trans person can request a magical ring that is placed on said person that ensures they cannot impregnate a vai. There are rules and regulations, as well as punishments for crimes around this ring but I'm not getting into it here. That'll be another post, including how the gerudo tell who's sired whom.

Though the magical ring was made very early into gerudo becoming a people, problems still began. At first there was peace, and peoples lived in around the desert along its borders, but found it was nearly impossible for them to live within full time.

Soon enough the gerudo had to go out to repopulate. They weren't a cohesive peoples, and how they handled the whole "we need humans or these proto-hylians" to repopulate varied widely.

For the most part, (as a part of the lore of OOT), the Gerudo would visit settlements near and far from the Gerudo dessert. Would that this be enough, and again it was for a time, when, as always, things got complicated.

Sometimes when Gerudo tried to return with their daughters to their homeland the family's/husbands and even their daughters objected, or even imprisoned them.

This began a war, and as it went on both sides suffered tragic losses.

Din decided that her great daughters needed a guardian, someone who was powerful, and made her first and only son, the blessing of Din. Someone who's sole purpose was to be a protector of Gerudo.

Ganondorf, as he was named, became that guardian, uniting the seven disparate tribes of the Gerudo, and being named king, titled the eighth heroine. With the Gerudo united he marched an army to the border and, with the seven heroins on his side, called on the leaders of the surrounding peoples to meet with him and discuss a peace treaty so no more blood may be shed.

Attached to the previous; the reason for a guardian only born 100 years is thus; they're only born when they're needed, and more often their 'guardianship' is a matter of increasing the population of the Gerudo, aka going out and impregnating a lot of (non-gerudo) women who will bare daughters.

The Gerudo worship all three ancient goddesses, but do not worship Hylia in the same way, they respect her as the daughter of the goddesses, along side the passed goddess Lolia.

Din covers pregnancy as a part of her 'realm', however birth is Farosh's 'realm'; the first breath of life. As such when a Gerudo is pregnant one of their relatives or close friends will sacrifice their hair to Farosh. It's considered super bad if the mother in question does it as they'll need all their strength.

This is also why Ganondorf has short hair in OOT, his first wife (they don't really have marriage like Hylians or most humans,) was pregnant and he sacrificed his hair to Farosh.

Skyloft; From Skyward Sword. He's 27 years old, has 2 daughters with his Zelda, who will be nicknamed Sun. They're both in a relationship with Groose. He’s leader with Sun of the peoples of Skyloft, the first Hylians. They don't have kings, that comes later (at force) from the Zonia. Groose is currently traveling the world in search of other peoples who survived the sealing wars, since supposedly there were 5. Skyloft is generally pretty settled, but the effect of fighting a literal god has reduced his stamina and made him susceptible to asthma attacks. He has a 'puffer' of Sundelion. He also occasionally suffers from terrible nightmares, visions of the far off future, and even occasional present-future, but these are sometimes mixed into actual nightmares, which causes some insomnia.

Outset; From Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass. His/their pronouns bounce between he and they and they are 22 years old. Co-creator of New Hyrule with his Zelda, Tetra. She is Queen, he/they are not King, he didn’t want the title as they prefer the freedom to travel without a retinue of knights. He and Tetra have a pretty good relationship but her new duties have meant that she’s often too busy to do much more than see him when he ferries people into New Hyrule. They have a daughter together, and he is her father, but Tetra and themselves are not married, and both have agreed to an ‘open’ relationship. Outset captains a ship with his friend and first mate Linebeck on (technically) Linebeck’s ship.

Hyrule; From LOZ 1&2, Link’s Adventure. Hyrule is 17, and technically what one might consider intersex, though it is magical in nature. They can have either genitals, but usually have one genitalia when large, and the other when they’re a fairy. They’re technically king of Hyrule, as they were married to Zelda 2 shortly after Link’s Adventure, but Hyrule doesn’t rule. The two Zeldas rule together as co-ruler queens, and yes they are both Zelda, and yes it can get very confusing. They mostly go by Zelda the Elder, (LOZ2) and Zelda the Younger (LOZ1). Hyrule doesn’t really understand marriage, as both themselves and Zelda the Elder were too young for it, and Hyrule tends to just sleep with whomever whenever they feel like. It’s generally seen as fine, since ‘Kings’ often have mistresses, though people do whisper about how they take as many male lovers as they do female. They tend to be very awkward in the castle as they have no idea how to be a king and aside from going out and helping people, and have no intention to learn. Their fine tunic and jewelry is supplied by Zelda the Elder, their wife.

First, tats;

The tattoos are a combination of the mirror shield on his chest dragon roost cavern door symbol. I think the one on his chest (replacing the dragon roost cavern statue symbol, the harp) made more sense. The symbol of protection on the strongest shield, matched with the symbols of the triforce and royal family imagery. I always intended to use the seahorse looking symbol, as it spoke to me. Combining them was initially a little daunting, but upon accidentally warping the dragon roost a little too much I realized I could have the outside wrap about his arm like a spiral, so that's what I did.

The symbols I used for reference;

Mirror Shield

dragon roost cavern door symbol

Cool! So, redesigns in order; Also now all of them have swords (save Skyloft for reasons™)

Skyloft;

Skyloft didn't change too much, just got some new models and used them to make his boots and belts more accurate. He's still best boi, though he's boring af in the original and I had to steal half of Zelda's design to make him look at least slightly interesting.

Outset;

Already rambled about his tats. Look, I didn't mind his first draft, but the thing was I was too busy trying to look like his original design, as well as getting wrapped up in several other people's Wind designs that I couldn't really get MINE. I knew I wanted tattoos, but I also knew I'd have to remake them over and over again and that I'd need to have them covered up a lot. Then, I thought; fuck it, we balling and managed to vector up some of the symbols. So yes there WILL be some times where I will curse myself, but you know what, it looks rad as hell. I also muted the colours away from the more cartoon-y, straight up pulling from BOTW for the newer colours, specifically Zelda.

Hyrule:

Same as Skyloft, all I did for the boy was make various bits more accurate with new models.

Hateno:

Oh good lord but did I flip flop, change course, and rework the entirety of our resident champion's clothes. Why? Because I hated my orignal. It was just stripped of armor because I didn't want to draw armor. Aka; I was being lazy~* But then once I freed myself, like with Wind, of making him look like everyone's Wild 'redesign' I found this beauty, which turned from my beloathed to my literal favourite design of the bunch. It didn't stray so far away from the champion as to not even remotely look like him but also didn't sit in the same uniformed path. Good job me!

Skyloft; From Skyward Sword. He's 27 years old, has 2 daughters with his Zelda, who will be nicknamed Sun. They're both in a relationship with Groose. He’s leader with Sun of the peoples of Skyloft, the first Hylians. They don't have kings, that comes later (at force) from the Zonia. Groose is currently traveling the world in search of other peoples who survived the sealing wars, since supposedly there were 5. Skyloft is generally pretty settled, but the effect of fighting a literal god has reduced his stamina and made him susceptible to asthma attacks. He has a 'puffer' of Sundelion. He also occasionally suffers from terrible nightmares, visions of the far off future, and even occasional present-future, but these are sometimes mixed into actual nightmares, which causes some insomnia.

Outset; From Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass. His/their pronouns bounce between he and they and they are 22 years old. Co-creator of New Hyrule with his Zelda, Tetra. She is Queen, he/they are not King, he didn’t want the title as they prefer the freedom to travel without a retinue of knights. He and Tetra have a pretty good relationship but her new duties have meant that she’s often too busy to do much more than see him when he ferries people into New Hyrule. They have a daughter together, and he is her father, but Tetra and themselves are not married, and both have agreed to an ‘open’ relationship. Outset captains a ship with his friend and first mate Linebeck on (technically) Linebeck’s ship.

Hyrule; From LOZ 1&2, Link’s Adventure. Hyrule is 17, and technically what one might consider intersex, though it is magical in nature. They can have either genitals, but usually have one genitalia when large, and the other when they’re a fairy. They’re technically king of Hyrule, as they were married to Zelda 2 shortly after Link’s Adventure, but Hyrule doesn’t rule. The two Zeldas rule together as co-ruler queens, and yes they are both Zelda, and yes it can get very confusing. They mostly go by Zelda the Elder, (LOZ2) and Zelda the Younger (LOZ1). Hyrule doesn’t really understand marriage, as both themselves and Zelda the Elder were too young for it, and Hyrule tends to just sleep with whomever whenever they feel like. It’s generally seen as fine, since ‘Kings’ often have mistresses, though people do whisper about how they take as many male lovers as they do female. They tend to be very awkward in the castle as they have no idea how to be a king and aside from going out and helping people, and have no intention to learn. Their fine tunic and jewelry is supplied by Zelda the Elder, their wife.