#lachia

Too bad there’s no “feeling other’s mustache” prompt, it could be such a simple choice then…

I'll never live that typo down, will I...

The heavy clouds of dust slowly settled on the ground to the sound of the last stones rolling down from the slope. Stanislaw slowly rose to his feet, coughing and trying to pull clear air into his lungs again. He blinked rapidly and tried to look around.

"General Núñez!" He raised his hands to his mouth to strengthen his voice and quickly pulled them back down with a loud hiss.

"I'm here," Gabe coughed out from behind him.

"Are you alright?" Stanislaw asked, rolling back his shoulder.

"Yes, yes." Gabe looked over himself then nodded his head and Stanislaw. "What's with your arm?"

Stanislaw frowned.

"I think it's dislocated. Do you know how to set it right?"

Gabe nodded and went over to him.

"Alright, on three. One, two- gAAAAH!" Sharp scream escaped Stanislaw throat as Gabe pulled, followed by a few words Gabe didn't need to know Lachian to understand.

(Tagging @blueflyingturtleontheway <3)

Thank you for the ask, Anon! We're sorry for making you wait! But I can assure you it was worth it.

The main story takes place around a year after the show's finale, so Elena already had some time to get used to being queen and now that no (big) magical threats loom over Avalor she gives more time to Avalor's political relations with the other kingdoms, part of that is renewing political ties with Lachia which then result in Michał's visit. It's been also a year since she granted all those new positions to her friends and they're still figuring them out.

For example, Naomi is still learning how to be chancellor and tries to find her own way of doing this which might be difficult with a strange visitor from a faraway kingdom around (is Naomi suspicious of Michał? Perhaps~)

Mateo has been looking into how wizardry looks in other countries and learns about how different the magic system is in Lachia (that makes him shocked)

And Gabe wants to learn from other great warriors (since Lachia is famous for its knights) to improve Avaloran guard (because let’s be honest, their guards needs improvement)

Firebreathers Faux-TTRPG: Jock Deck

Here it is! The first third of that big illustration project I started a little while ago!

The main concept for this project is, essentially, D&D-style character cards, where each character has 2 special abilities based on their actual in-universe skills. Of course, these abilities had to be reworded into dice rolling terms, and I’m not about to go ridiculously in-depth on this “homebrew”, so I’m ignoring game balancing :)

Also: I feel the need to clarify, because my brother was confused, that I am NOT making an actual game, I’m just riffing on D&D mechanics and my own experience with homebrewing stuff in the past!

Image transcripts will come out with the single-card posts, down the line!

BOY DO I

Ehsuhrhd okay so the best developed ones are actually the ones I develop with @lieutenant-amuel! They're from a Slavic-inspired fantasy kingdom called Lachia and we actually did a whole post on them here (you can find everything about them through the #lachia tag on my blog, although there isn't all that much)

To sum them up quickly, we have Lyudmila, the ruler (knyaz) of Lachia, and her husband (knyaz consort, because of a loophole in the Lachian law) of common birth that was granted nobility, Stanislaw. There's of course Aleksandr, Lyudmila's best friend turned enemy, his son, the ambassador of Lachia, Michał and his fiance Maria :D

Originally we developed these characters for a fanfiction to Elena of Avalor, but right now their story is so developed it's really an original, of which the crossover takes only a small part of.

So to start, Lachia is a Slavic inspired fantasy kingom, a little disney inspired since it came from our unfulfilled dreams of a Slavic disney princess but now evolved far beyond that. Of course, given our backgrounds it’s mostly inspired but what we like most about Polish and Russian folklore and culture and spiced up with our ✨imagination✨

The rulers are knyaz Lyudmila the restorer and knyaz consort Stanislaw Chrabrak. If you’re confused – yes, knyaz is a male title! The Lachian law states that only the knyaz (king) can be the ruler… except it doesn’t say that the knyaz has to be a man >:3

There are also other characters, like Aleksandr Przedannowski, Stanislaw’s companion from their hero days and Lyudmila’s best friend… or rather ex-best friend. His son, Michał Przedannowski, the Lachian ambassador (who goes to Avalor and that’s how we get the crossover with Elena of Avalor 😁) and his fiance Maria Iskrennowska.

Aleksandr finished his nightly walk - it never worked to cast out his sleeplessness, but it was better than tossing in bed for hours - on the main courtyard and looked over to the castle walls. The lamps in the guard posts were lit, casting flickering gleams onto the smooth stones, as if copying the stars above them and right over the main gate, standing out clearly as if someone cut out a hole in a sparkling fabric, was a black silhouette.

A tight knot tied in Aleksandr's stomach when he recognized the princess.

It had been over six weeks since they have came back from their mission - only he and sir Iarosłav - and only two weeks since sir Stanislaw Chrabrak was announced missing in the field. And despite that, princess Lyudmila continued to go on the castle walls every day and look out for his return.

She wasn't in any danger right now, not physically, so he really didn't have a reason to come to her, but as he climbed the narrow staircase, he was starting to think that if there is a problem, it might be much more complicated, than what can be solved with a sword.

She didn't move, even when he came out and stopped only a few steps away from her. The way her gaze was glued to the horizon and her whole body tense, she didn't even seem to notice him. Finally he cleared his throat to get her attention.

"Knyaziewna? It's a bit late..." his voice drifted off meaningfully, but she didn't even look at him.

"He's not coming back," she whispered so quietly, he had to come closer to even hear it.

"Come again?"

"Stanislaw." She finally peeled her gaze away from the road and moved onto him. The starlight was glistening in the tears in her eyes, that threatened to start flowing at any moment. "He won't come back, will he?"

Her voice was quiet and hoarse, as if she's been crying - or was only about to.

Aleksandr froze.

"But you've been there." A new tone, something between hope and desperation, snuck into the princess's voice as she continued. "You've seen him last, so you must know... Please tell me why... I have to know if he is..." her voice broke and she wasn't able to finish, but Aleksandr understood.

But what was he supposed to say?

Of course he is dead, I killed him with my own hands. Of course he is dead, I have buried him and made sure no one would find him. Of course he is dead and I would do anything to take his place.

But he didn't say any of those things. He was, after all, a coward. Instead he whispered, through a sudden lump in his throat:

"I'm afraid he is, knyaziewna."

A loud sob escaped Lyudmila's mouth and she immediately slammed a hand to her lips to stifle it. It was as if the grief she's been fighting for the past weeks had finally won over her and she simply broke down. Her whole chest caved in, the way she was shaking from silent sobs, almost doubling over. She pursed her eyes and turned away, to hide the tears, flowing in hot streams on her face.

Aleksandr froze for a moment. He should get her back to the palace. To her parents. To the safety of her chambers where no unwelcome eyes could see her in such a state. A proper knight would take care of his lady without acknowledging her moment of weakness. But Aleksandr haven't been a proper knight for quite some time now, was he?

None of those thoughts have even crossed his minds before he closed what little distance was between them and closed her tiny, trembling frame in his own strong arms. Lyudmila, without a word, clinged to the fabric of his żupan and her sobs became louder and sharper. He slowly caressed her back and thankful for the surrounding darkness, let his own tears fall on her hair.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, even though she couldn't know how seriously he meant those words.

Ekakjroajrjsjrkwkeosk WHY

Alright so this drabble came out much longer than what I usually write, but given that this one technically isn't a fanfiction, I simply felt like I had to add more information to make everything clear. And turns out I was thinking for quite some time about it XD I just knew I wanted to keep it angsty (cause come on, their relationship is basically the most tragic one in our story) and I wanted to keep the prompt as unchanged as possible - and you couldn't imagine how many of my ideas didn't reach those two criteria.

As for the drabble itself, I'm now thinking that it would've been the very beginning to their friendship, so I hope I have foreshadowed well enough it's future course.

Thank very much for requesting them and to everyone, feel free to ask about them! And of course, the original post with the prompts:

what’s the deal with aleksandr? you mentioned he’s lyudmila’s ex-friend and his surname is consonant with the word betrayal so what happened between them?

We absolutely do not mind! This is a very interesting question actually, since this is one of the core parts of the story.

Basically what you need to know about Aleksandr, is that he comes from an old and important noble family... except because of his father's misdeed their family had lost their honor, reputation and a lot of the influence, so as a young man Aleksandr really wanted to prove that he's different than his father and get their good name back by probing himself to the knyaz (king).

Now, some time after Stanislaw was granted noble title (which is a whole different and long story), he, Aleksandr and one other noble were sent by the knyaz on an important mission. During their mission they ventured into a very secluded place were Aleksandr, driven by jelousy and incited by this other noble... betrayed Stanislaw in a very painful way. And let's just say that this betrayal "took Stanislaw out of commission" for a year.

Lyudmila, who was already in love with Stanislaw by then, though they weren't an official couple yet, was obviously devastated. Aleksandr was obviously terrified by what he did and regretted it all... but also since his betrayal remained a secret, he got the good name and trust he always wanted. So now driven not by hope to gain something, but first by guilt and later by the genuine friendship he developed with Lyudmila, he decided to atone for his betrayal and serve her as her knight and later her friend.

Once Stanislaw comes back, of course after some troubles, he becomes friends with Aleksandr too and they all live happily ever after :D

...until Lyudmila learns the truth about Aleksandr's betrayal and everything gets lost.

@lieutenant-amuel

Oooh that's an interesting topic!

So the first one to have a name (and really, the first one in this universe) was Michał, who I called after Michał Wołodyjowski, my favourite character from a famous Polish book series called colloquially the Trilogy (With Fire and Sword, the Deluge and Colonel Wolodyjowski)(I so so recommend it to everyone, it got adapted into movies and you can find it with English sub) though they aren't really similar in the end XD

Fun fact, Michał'a second name is Stanislaw!

Aleksandr's name ended up this way kind of by mistake, since he was at first supposed to be Aleksey but I mixed those up. Aleksey came from a Russian legend of the three bogatyrs that is actually a big part of the Lachian story!

Now their surname, Przedannowski. In general when coming up with surname we used the system of Russian word + Polish surname ending -ski (with one exception, but we'll come to that) and to be fair, I think Przedannowski is the my favourite out of all the surnames we made up. So it made from the noun "predannost'" (Преданность) which in English is "devotion" I think, but it also sounds very similar to "predat'" (Предать)(similar to Polish "zaprzedać") which means "to betray" WHICH WORKS JUST PERFECTLY

As for Maria it's a funny story, because there really isn't much thought behind her name XD We had the idea of Michał's fiance in our minds for some time now, but didn't have a name for her yet until one day I just was like "hey, Maria is a pretty name, it's Slavic and it makes me think of romance, how about we name her that" and Amuel just said yeah alright, and for her second name we've chosen Barvara, both for the meaning of the name Barbara and for the association with the Polish word "barwa" meaning "color/shade". Her surname does have more symbolism though! At first she was supposed to be called Zabotowska from "zabota" (забота) meaning "care" but eventually we decided on Iskrennowska from "iskrennost'" (искренность) meaning "honesty".

Next up is Stanislaw and his name was chosen put of a few with similar meanings, with Stanisław/Stanislav specifically meaning "someone who achieves glory". He also has a patronym, Petrovich since his father is called Petr. Now his surname, Chrabrak is where we see the exception from out rule! It's also made from a Russian word, "khrabrost'" (храбрость) meaning "bravery" but since -ski is the ending of surnames typically associated with nobility and Stanislaw doesn't actually come from a noble family, we've decided to make his surname sound more "common".

And now, last but not least, Lyudmila with her full name and title being:

Lyudmila Joanna Swietlana Galina Kraskevna first of this name, knyaz regnant of the kingdom of Lachia, Restorer of Peace, Chosen of the People, Maiden of the Blooming Flowers... etc etc

But really, usually she's called simply Lyudmila the Restorer, though she did earn each and every one of her titles and they aren't just empty flatterings.

So to yes, we actually thought very hard about how to name our OCs (usually XD) and it definitely helped with worldbuilding since we also came up with some in universe naming rules in the process, and choosing names helped us to decide on some character traits we wanted our characters to have.

Sorry to keep you waiting Nonnie and thank you for asking this question! We really love talking about Lachia and answering all the questions you might have!