#asksovereign

I imagine it's much larger and more luxurious than the average cecaelian nursery, and probably more fortified too. A whole army guards this thing 24/7. Maybe the size of a hotel? In smaller nurseries, mothers may share rooms, but I think his harem wives would each have their own dedicated rooms to reduce their stress. They only share the rooms with their young offspring.

A lot of nurseries are located in natural caves, sunken ships, etc. but Sovereign has the wealth to build a whole new structure for his, probably out of stone. There are few windows because Sovereign wants his wives to remain ignorant of what's going on outside, so instead the place is well-lit with bioluminescent plants and crystals. ("Well-lit" by cecaelian standards, since their eyes are sensitive to light. By human standards it would seem quite dark in there!) If there are windows, they are frosted so residents can't see through them.

The walls are carved with intricate artwork and the place is beautified with plants and decorations to keep residents happy. I imagine a lot of tile mosiac art everywhere.

I'm thinking similar vibes to this:

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

The Zareenites liberated their red elf slaves around the year 4300. The slaves were replaced with robots, which dramatically increased the empire's energy usage and pollution output.

600 years later, Sovereign and Mr. Ocean were born off the eastern coast of Noalen. By then, Zareen's pollution was really getting out of control and starting to affect foreign waters.

200 years after that, Sovereign was an accomplished curative mage. He healed sick Aquarians for free, simply to better his community. But the number of patients was increasing every year, they were coming from lands further away, and their ailments were getting stranger and more severe. Based on their similar symptoms, Sovereign began to suspect that these Aquarians were being poisoned by something.

Sovereign traced the cases on a map and noticed they followed specific ocean currents. These currents all passed by Zareen's shores, which by that time were notoriously dirty with pollution. Could the currents really carry this pollution so far from its source? According to all these Aquarians with strange cancers and chemical poisonings, apparently so.

Anyway, the Red Elf Liberation Movement was the major catalyst to the Aquarian Alliance's uprising. These events are directly connected, even though they happened centuries apart. The RELM actually gave birth to two Great Kingdoms: The Empire of Damijana and the Aquarian Alliance, which today are ironically at war with eachother over the pollution...Pollution that stemmed from the RELM in the first place, because Zareenite corporations would rather pollute Gaia with millions of fuel-guzzling robots than even think about paying real flesh-and-blood workers.

I just thought it was too interesting not to mention!

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Question 1: As I said before, this is hard to measure, so take these numbers with a grain of salt:

Human: 16

Dworf: 16

Roshava: 16

Troll: 13

Ogre: 13

Elf: 20

Goblin: 20

Gnome: 35

Sirene: 20

Cecaelia: 45

Satyr: 13

Faun: 15

Minotaur: 13

Centaur: 16

Gorgon: 16

Question 2: Sovereign has hundreds of offspring, but has chosen a small handful of his most capable children to be his heirs, lackeys, and goons.

First in line for heir is his chadly son, Champion of Aquaria (nickname "Champ"). There will be more info about him and his family in an upcoming concept, but I can say a few things about him here.

Champ is the strongest, smartest, and most handsome of all Sovereign's offspring, which is why he was chosen to lead the Aquarian Alliance after his father's death. The pressure has been on this guy since his birth to be perfect in every way, as Sovereign holds him to an impossible standard. On the outside, Champ seems like a cool and confident guy. But on the inside, he's a hair away from a nervous breakdown at any given moment. His public persona is very different from the person he is in private.

In public, he projects a dignified and collected presence, as if he's ready to take on anything with the utmost professionalism. But as soon as he comes home and closes the door behind him, he's on the floor having a big, fat panic attack and crying for his mommy.

Champ is trying to stick it out and be the perfect scyllo his crazy father wants him to be, but is is certainly not easy. Sovereign is very hard on him, but also spoils him and parades him around with pride. Because truly, Champ does exceed expectations in almost everything he does...but it's not just luck, it's because he works his fucking ass off 24/7 to be the best. This dude grinds like a belt sander, day in, day out.

Champ's intense daily grind is not exactly sustainable though. There will probably come a day when he comes unglued and falls apart, mentally or physically--or both. And I'm willing to bet it will be at the worst possible moment too...

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Thank you very much, I'm really glad to hear such a positive response! This reply is super late, so as of now you have already written your story and I read the whole thing! It was a treat seeing these characters in action!

Well, of course the royal heirs have anxiety...look at their parents, they're all stanky dumpster fires lol. Actually I'm surprised most of their kids aren't in worse shape than they are! A lot of resilience on display here.

(Tep/Goryx turned out the worst by far, imo...which is ironic because his dad is probably the least fucked up Great Ruler. Dude just had a screw loose, I guess...)

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Oh lawd he comin

darkwingphoenix

Gabriel Iglesias would deem this man to be OH HELL NAW level of fatness

Like HOLY FUCK HE GAINED WEIGHT

His current pic is a reasonable hefty dad bod, but now he's become a butterball

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I imagine Sovereign just gets fatter and fatter as the series progresses and he conquers more of the sea. It symbolizes just how much territory he's greedily swallowed up to his own detriment. (Meanwhile Mr. Ocean just gets thinner, symbolizing how much power he's lost)

Sovereign's basically immobilized by his weight at this point, he can barely even swim without having a heart attack. His servants strain their backs carrying him around in a big clamshell-shaped vessel.

Considering how many calories magic burns and how powerful Sovereign is, I can't even imagine how much this motherfucker must eat to have gotten this big. We're talking a porpoise or two a day here! I think it's safe to say this is goes beyond the realm of just being a foodie, and into the realm of serious mental illness...

He likes to pretend that he's the sane one and Mr. Ocean is crazy, but I'd say they are both equally self-destructive--just in opposite directions.

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Good question! I think Champ loves his mom, as most kids do. He is her child, and I think despite his age, he will always kind of see Jewel from a child's perspective. Her flaws are not as pronounced to him, he assumes she knows best because she is his elder.

Yeah she might be a bit of a Karen, to put it lightly...but Champ still looks to her for guidance and love, and she provides those things the best way she knows how. He sees her doing her fussy Karen thing and assumes she must have good reasons for it, because in his mind she is older and wiser than him.

Tekeetian culture places heavy reverence upon elders. This was true even when Sovereign was little, as he always obeyed and respected his parents, even if he disagreed with them. (Mr. Ocean obeyed them less so--not because he didn't love or respect them, but because he is neurodivergent and genuinely struggles to follow directions...)

Champ has certainly met Vex...in fact, he's probably spent more time with her than any of his other kids. But this isn't exactly "quality time", it's more like Vex constantly gets herself into serious trouble and Queen Machine says, "JUST WAIT UNTIL YOUR FATHER HEARS ABOUT THIS!"

So Champ has to drag his ass into the nursery like every other day to scold this kid, hoping she will respect him enough to obey him.

Spoiler art: she doesn't. Because she is smarter than him and she knows it.

Champ is a busy guy, his babymommas know he doesn't have time for nursery business and try to do all the child-rearing themselves. But Vex is his most exceptional child, that entitles her to a little more attention, and the trouble she causes is so above-and-beyond what a normal child does that gets Queen Machine squawking for Dad and even Grandpa to come fix it, because she is totally overwhelmed with this shit.

Most cecaelian children get punished for roughhousing or sneaking desserts. Vex gets punished for blabbing confidential information about her government and starting diplomatic incidents.

One time she trespassed into hostile territory and was eaten by a sacred orca, forcing her father's troops to kill it and free her from its stomach. This deeply offended the enemy tribe, and Sovereign was forced to war with them before he was prepared, losing thousands of troops and hemorrhaging millions of GP in the process.

You know, just average kid shenanigans.

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Just goes to show how despicable they all are...the bar is so low it's practically in Hell.

Being the best High Ruler on Gaia is like being the best turd in the litter box. At the end of the day you're still a piece of shit lol

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

I'm sorry to say I'm not familiar with any of these characters and I just don't have time to look that deeply into them. But I do kind of know a little about Thor, and I can say that he could easily take Sovereign out with his lightning powers. Water + electricity = all the fish go belly-up!

Thor would have to be sneaky about it though. Sovereign is a beast at casting spell wards (magical shields) that can repel other spells. He's that annoying guy in the fighting game who just blocks the whole time and then finally strikes when his opponent is tired and frustrated lol.

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost