#lestrem

(right now im calling it Camollium, and the universe / IP will be called Lestrem / Tales of Lestrem etc something like that idk)

Premise is a dark fantasy sci-fi world where the main character Aarlery becomes nice early on in the story, and the story follows the stories of friendship / general adventures between them and other characters, including villains. I want worldbuilding potential to be infinite, so no saving the world stories or hero against big bad boss, rather just an individual’s adventures, ill post updates (if i feel like it) about races, important characters, settings, etc. I have not started the story yet, but i have heaps of notes and worldbuilding ideas already, heres the premise of one of the races:

Species are separated into intelligent and non-intelligent (a unique name will be given to each), if something is specified as a race, it is of Lilin (placeholder name) descent. all races are sentient and human-like, but they each have unique thought patterns, but all have their outliers

The Holfa People

Short, stubby appearance, somewhat like a furry whale/human in proportions, big wide mouth, head is part of body (no neck basically) holes for ears, precise control over fur shape/movement/texture, e.g. flaring up, showing accented fur as larger, flattening, camouflage in natural environment fur is always two colours, a major and accent colour, about half of the Holfa’s major colours are light grey, major colours are always less saturated and pastel, accented colours are anything and everything and are in more enclosed areas (extremities, between things like fingers, inside of elbows, ear tufts, etc) used as analogy of trust, the more accent they show the more they trust somebody. Personality is Dwarf-like; stubborn, cautious, and gruff, but strong sense of family and typically more embarrassed about being kind (except for with family) make less of a big deal about it, big on trust

Aarlery will be half Holfa and half human, but like many important characters, i label as an “outlier” in terms of their species personality trends

people in Lestrem are generally not opposed to cross-race breeding, but some people frown upon it and it is not that common. when crossbreeding happens, the offsprings genes can only be a mix of 2 races at most, so for example if two half breeds (total of 4 races) have an offspring, the child will at random be a mix of 2/4 of any of those races, and the other two race-specific genes will become dormant (no effect, only factored in for the following). An exclusion of this are some (popularised? common?) times where a combination of 5 ish genes are kept consistently through many generations which resulted in a new race, however this doesnt happen often, and most likely wont in the Lestrem universe. All the existing races will most likely be at least millenia old except for maybe a couple secretive groups. this is just to keep things simple for worldbuilding while also allowing expansion if i change my mind later. I dont wanna have to imagine what a mix between 10 different races are

Riposte, Chapter 2

Ka’s Observations

And they ran, for the horrors behind them were not that which one such as themselves could dwell upon. I look close, curious. An interesting character they were. They far resembled the humans from our previous observations. The body structure, movement, proportions, strangely were all identical, however where Earth’s humans were all that was intelligent, this realm had immense variety. Aarlery had strong resemblance to the humans, having a tanned olive skin-tone, an average body scale. Strangely, on their head among their earthy-brown hair lay two horns and a pair of inhuman ears; fluffy, and surrounded by a large tuft of textured fur, much like that of the… goats… of Earth. I call upon our memories, and remember the term the humans used: A Satyr!

Aarlery continued on, panting, before slowing to a walk. They glanced, paranoid, around through the trees. The forest that they had been running through consisted of trees like the pines of Earth, however the needles were far wider around the tree, and led up at a straight angle, into the darkness of the night above. The needles of the trees also started a short distance from the forest floor, just enough that if one were to lay flat, and provided the area was lit up enough, they could see for hundreds of meters away. The starlight however, gave little in the way of visibility. A lack of moon in this realm gave night an imposing presence to those who may feel fear of the unknown, the far brighter stars a meager compensation.

Aarlery

I've gotta get away, get away from that stupid place, I NEED TO GET AWAY. I walked. The trees seemed to be mocking me, their leaves rustling in the wind like a ghouls laughter, veering inwards towards me. I shuddered, and ignored them, curling into myself, not even looking ahead as I walked. Nothing made sense anymore, I walked and walked and my mind was overrun with conflicting voices. Numb, I ignored them, walking on. What? A town, voices, I'm sitting in a chair, a warm room, people gathered around me. A kindly woman feeding me soup. Doesn't matter... must get away... trees again, whispers of needles calling me names. I walk on... I stumble, grab a tree for support. I see Dusty again, the bark of the tree which falls away below my hands is his back crumbling in on itself. I run again, sobbing. Houses again, bigger houses, more of them. I notice a furry face, in a cage? Doesn't matter, I move on, walk on, MUST GET AWAY. The houses are gone, I fall to the ground, my legs not responding. I see in the distance through the bottoms of the trees. Empty. I cry again, into the ground, making a wish, but not knowing what for. My mind is in shambles, what am I doing with myself? I sit up, my stomach grumbling. I remember the town that i passes just moments(?) ago, and begin to walk back, nothing on my mind but food.

Ka

I had taken quite the interest in Aarlery’s venture. Their mind was… interesting… to me. The town of Territh was quite large compared to others in the area, having hundreds of buildings and even a high tech, Grask-built town hall. Grask technology and infrastructure was among that of the most advanced in Lestrem. Their workers infamous for the efficiency and expertise in their profession drilled into them since birth. The streets that evenkng were busy, comparable to that of Earth’s town and city streets, albeit with a lack of the monstrous hunks of metal they favour for transport. Notably among the people however, was the impression of constant impatience and rush from the… the Territheans? No, Territhens? Terri? The Territh people. Yes, among the Territh people. The pedestrians all seemed to be solely intent on simply moving to where they needed to be, lost in thought of whatever they believed was significant. The vendors on the sides all called out about their wares in a monotone voice, or simply sat and waited, staring into space, for somebody to show interest in their goods. To my side a voice calls out, seeming far off. Wait, my side? I don’t have a side… what-

Aarlery

I stare blankly into the street at the torrent of hurried townsfolk from an alley. It seems I had come at a bad hour, perhaps i could- grumble… right, food. I join the flow of people and look out for the sustenance my body so unfortunately needs. As i walk, I seemingly trip over my own foot, stumbling into the well-dressed fellow beside me. I apologise and continue on, but mysteriously find a small purse of coins in my hand! Oh how fortunate of me! I grin to myself, but falter as the memories come crashing back, my humour all but vanished. Exactly at that moment I feel sudden sympathy for the man, angry at myself that i’m forced to steal. It’s too much, I basically fall against the wall of an alley, block out the light of reality with my hands.

why

why

why

why

WHY?!

Justkeepgoingjustkeepgoingjustkeepgoing, I tell myself, I get up, walk back. Any motivation I had is gone, but I just focus on walking. I see a stall, exchange a couple Octims and a Septim for some for skewers of steaming meat and seared vegetables, the familiar weight of the coins drop into the stranger’s hand, and I wonder at the lives the lumps of metal have lived, the importance of them because of nothing but the engravings who was supposedly our “Saviours” and “Queens” who hadn't done a thing since they “United to vanquish the foe which had plagued our land for millennia” I scoff as I stare at Tilleadh's likeness on the back of the change. A complete load of silt if you asked me. A story made up by the influential for power. I turn away to once again join the current of flesh walking by, and dip into another alleyway. I observe the stacks of boards and boxes for a moment. “Hm. Why not.” I leap up off the boxes and onto the roof, clenching the skewer precariously between my teeth.

As I settle on the rooftop, taking bites out of the skewer, I gaze at the three moons. The night is beautiful, Desi and Derum remaining in their tight-knit orbit, with Luct trailing away in the distance dejectedly. Their symbolized tale of conflict bringing back memories of the tales from my mother.

Whoa, a Flashback, how BORING!

"Goodniiiiggghhhtt Arls" ma drawls out sarcastically as she makes for the door. "Wait..." I call out "What is it this time?" "I..." I smile sheepishly at her" "Story?" I question hopefully She sighs, looks between me and the clock on my wall pointedly. I look back at her, grinning. "Fine, but don't go complaining about being tired tomorrow, you will have nooooo sympathy from me buster." I grin even wider, sitting up in bed, waiting apprehensively. “Hmmmm… let me tell you about our moon legend, you ever heard that story before?” “Nuh uh” I confirm, glancing at the light of Luct through the window.

“So, a long, long time ago, wayyy before my mother’s mother’s mother’s mother etc etc was alive, the moons were quite different to how they are now. Instead of Luct being all tiny and far away, it was super big and powerful, and kept the other two far apart from each other. Desi and Derum lived horribly, always threatened and bullied by big bad Luct. They both knew they had to do something about it, so at a glance, they knew the other would fight for them. In a great big battle, Luct was crushed by the combined strength of their teamwork, and was forced away from the two, as they grew closer than ever. Rumor has it that Luct is still jealous of the two, and plots and schemes alone for their terrible return to power. I for one, am sure that will never happen, Desi and Derum are far too strong together. Just like Dionodair and Ceartas, our two strong queens! Like the two moons, they fought against Atrox and brought peace to Riposte finally. That's a tale for another time though." I gazed at her through my half-closed eyes, and pictured great big beings in the stars fighting, thought about Luct and their evil plans, but sleep was too great a force to worry about it.

Roof.

fyi i have no writing experience besides school english class

Riposte Chapter 1

Ka

“Pulla…”

“Yeah yeah i knoww”

“We have two minutes Pulla, two! hurry. the FUCK. UP!”

“I said i know jezrien, dont fucking rush- SEE?!, THERE! wait what…”

The safe opens, the band of thieves looking in confusion. Inside the high-tech safe lies not the gold and jewels from the recent shipment, but a simple letter.

“Where…?” Jezrien scrunches his face in anger, before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath: “It doesnt matter, grab it, we have to GO. guards will be rotating any second”

Pulla pockets the letter and the group leaks out of the room, leaving nothing but a whisper of air.

Aarlery

In the safety of the dark-swallowed courtyard, Jezrien, ever the leader, assesses the group, stage-whispering instructions.

“This next part we’ll be like lost mice in a hawk’s nest, partner up. Pulla, with me”

“Surrree thingg boss” Pulla replies, voice almost dripping with sarcasm.

Before I even get a chance to look around, I get a tap on my shoulder. I turn around to see Dustwren (Dusty) towering above me, an excited grin on his face.

“You and me Aarls?” he asks, his joy slowly fading as I hesitate in my surprise.

“Uuhm yeah sure?” I answer hurriedly, bewildered that he wanted to partner up with the runt so eagerly. What do I say to this? Why is he…? He grins again, excited.

“Great! Come this way, I saw a gate over here through the garden, Shouldn’t be any guards either, nice and easy, right?” His words a rush, he barely stops for breath when talking. Im utterly lost. I open my mouth, about to try and form an answer, before he runs off towards the back exit, slinking against the estate’s eastern walls in the shadow. I trail behind him, attempting to form a cohesive thought.

Along the way, he repeatedly looks back at me every few seconds, as if making sure that i hadn’t ran off without him. We near the garden, and find it occupied by two guards huddled around a table covertly. We hear a strange screaming, whispering sound from the western wall, and the guards jump in surprise, before gathering the mysterious contents of the table and rushing off towards the sounds, sidearms and rapiers drawn. We look at one another in confusion, and he turns to me fully, licking his lips anxiously. I notice he has his hand in left coat pocket. Its shaking.

“I um, I snuck into Lady Casper’s room while Pulla was working on the safe, and saw this. It uh… i thought it… that you might….” He sighed and hit his head with his knuckle. I just… stood there, panicked. whatthefuckwhatishappening. Thoughts racing through my head like a torrent.

“I saw this and thought you might like it!!” He finally managed to say, all too loud, and pulled out… a ring. He pushed it towards me, looking down, and I took it, staring closely.

“I… its…”

It was… enchanting. It was only an earthy golden-brown, but the complexity of the colour and shine entranced me. I stared into it, feeling like I was falling into it, out of my world. Then I turned it in the light, and if I held it just right… I gasped, as it shone all manners of brown and maroon and yellow, and all the shades the ground below could could ever be filled my eyes. I put it on, admiring the way it reflected the light onto my skin.

“Its beautiful… I… thank you Dusty!” I said, breathless, looking back at him, blushing. Why am I so flustered whats wrong with me? I wondered.

“No worries… I…” He paused, and looked back up, into my eyes. Gosh I never noticed how beautiful his eyes were… I could feel the blood rushing to my head. He stepped forward, and took my hands. Is this really happening?!

“Aarlery I-

“HEY, I FOUND TWO, STOP RIGHT THERE” A guard, in stance, in the distance, aimed his fancy silver ArmCannon at us. AT ME!

I stared, just stood and stared, and Dusty pulled me close to him, blocking me from view. My face pressed into his chest, I heard a muffled boom. Everything around me shook, and Dusty’s chest violently twitched, before he went limp, falling onto me as I backed away. I… I was frozen… I stared at the twitching body as the skin and fur on his back began to crumble to dust. I gave a pitiful sob, and ran… just ran…

Dustwren

Ok so:

1. Spell Types

To cast a spell, you can choose one of two options: a) develop a spell, b) use a simple spell, or c) raw magic (more on this later)

To develop a spell, you need to basically envision it in your mind, and keep that envisioning in your head and keep up the visualisation until its engrained into your mind.

To use a simple spell, you just need to envision an extremely simple functionality, usually including applying force to something. Simple spells are not needed to be engrained into your mind.

There is a spectrum between developed and simple spells, which are essentially somewhat-simple developed spells which are forgotten quickly. Nicknamed temporary spells, ill figure out the nuance of this another time. In practice it would be something unique to a single situation, but repetitive in that situation, like a group of enemy’s which counter your developed spells, so you spend a minute or so devising a new spell to deal with them, use it as much as you need in that encounter, then forget it afterwards.

2. Complexity/cost

Increased complexity of spells means more time and effort needed to envision it, this can be aided by using aids such as drawings or anything which helps you remember a spell’s functionality.

Increased complexity or physical energy increases the mana needed to cast the spell (more on this later), so for example, Octavia’s primary spell simply accelerates the smoke which surrounds her (a trait of her race) to be either very thin, high speed razors of smoke, or apply pressure to areas, allowing her to use the smoke like one would a tool or a hand. This is very simple, and due to how thin the smoke razors are they use very little energy compared to their effectiveness. If you want to break down a wall, it is far for efficient to analyse the wall and break the weak points of it with a simple spell than it is to use brute force.

Side note: Developed spells are almost always more mana efficient (if you’re smart about it) as they allow for far more room in technique and avoiding wasting energy, like using a spell as a blade rather then a club (figuratively)

3. Mana:

the quantitative specifics i have yet to decide fully on, I think i will keep mana costs mostly up to me to balance them, but generally 10 mana is enough to break through a brick and mortar wall with blunt force. Complexity i leave up to me :3.

Mana is essentially a living thing’s store of energy, one’s max mana and mana regeneration can be improved through training (see 4.)

This is not known by many inhabitants of Lestrem, but mana stores can be linked between individuals, either allowing them to share one (which is somewhat commonly known) or, siphon it…

What this means in practicality, is that if someone voluntarily cedes their mana store to you, you can access it at any time (with effectiveness decreasing across distances slightly, long distances stopping it from working though). So the extremely low mana store of each soldier in a legion can be siphoned to a single sorcerer. This can be used in conjunction with enchantments on an individual, perhaps allowing a group of skilled soldiers in the legion to have their strength enhanced or whatever else you could think of

Spells can also be negated by another spellcaster quite easily, by simply negating the mana attached to a spell, or by countering it completely if you must. This is a weird idea, and open to much debate. For example, Octavia’s smoke razors are easy to counter as it is just really fast smoke, little mana is used. I will think more on this.

3.5 Magic vs Technology

Countries are either pro-magic, pro-tech, or has little of both:

Mana/magic is a result of the divine, so it is somewhat sentient. Magic hates technology, and things like mechanics greatly disrupt it, stopping spells from being cast in the presence of technology. However, this works both ways. Magic also disrupts technology, ALSO preventing it from working. Essentially, technology doesn’t function around magic, and vice versa, thus why medieval-style armies still exist, for magic and tech countries to still be able to battle, the tech countries generally having more mass produced weapons and armour and soldiers, while magic countries produce extremely efficient and deadly weapons and armour using spells, along with having less of a population for the armies.

4. Mana Training

okay, so, to train one’s mana and improve the maximum mana or regeneration rate, you need to expend your physical energy through intense concentration to create mana. This essentially equates mana training to a physical workout, minus the movement. This is why pretty much all mages are very skinny, as fat is stored energy and they convert it to mana for training in their magical pursuit. This also leaves less energy and time for physical training, resulting in mages usually being relatively weak physically too.

This seems simple enough, but ties in with technology.

Mixing use of technology and magic is difficult, and results in a strange between of total effectiveness. This causes hybrid lifestyles or techniques to be more complex, and weaker than going pure magic or pure tech, however it makes someone significantly more flexible to situations, and unpredictable.

Remember mana siphoning? yeah that means you can train somebody else’s mana without them casting a spell. Yep. You can increase both yours and somebody else’s mana store and regen, as long as they are willing. Basically nobody on lestrem knows about this, more on this in examples.

5. healing

as you have to visualise a spell, healing people is difficult with magic. All the sentient races with some exceptions have very similar anatomy as far as magic is concerned btw. Somebody with no knowledge of anatomy may be able to at best stop someone from bleeding (and accidentally injure them in the process likely), but someone who studied the body through textbooks for years would be able to revive someone who died recently, or even a bullet wound. Essentially you need to know exactly what you are doing to heal somebody, which is HARD

This is why Trish is undead and not fully alive, her bodily functions which ceased working between when she died and when Octavia reanimated her are held together crudely by an enchantment which siphons off of Octavia’s mana

Also, disease is virtually impossible to cure with magic, as theres barely a mage out there who knows a bacterium or virus inside out. Let alone one with enough mana to cast such a complex healing spell.

A way this ties in with mana training is, tech countries hoard knowledge BIG TIME, so it is difficult to study anatomy without being near technology, thus disabling one from being able to train mana. This means healing between magic and tech is also somewhat balanced, as magical healing can only do very simple tasks very effectively, but tech have access to doctors who know everything about the body, enough to keep someone from dying to sickness or old age. I suppose I will add a university or hospital somewhere which is dedicated to educating healers without technology, but it will be very expensive and won’t have many graduates.

6. Examples and ideas

The Witch Pack of Adothea (Ah-doh-thee-ah): one example of mana siphoning i had is a huge pack of wolves in a northern forest who were all raised by a witch. The witch is essentially their mother, so they trust her, and have chosen to cede their mana to her. She has also trained these wolves to all have decently high mana storage and regen, which she uses primarily to enchant the wolves, making them stronger or something else, i have yet to decide, but anyone who enters the forest is killed by extremely powerful wolves swiftly… :3

Covens of spellcasters will be common who all link their mana in order to cast extremely powerful or complex spells not possible otherwise, such as conjurations or complex and debilitating enchantments

This allows for practically an unlimited number of spells to be available, I will develop this system more in my side stories like Trish and Octavia during the writing of Riposte, as no spellcasters will be present in the tech country. Im open to any ideas!

Fin…

This is half my own notes, half being open to anyone’s input on this, technicalities, loopholes etc

at its core, I began creating the Lestric language in my frustration of the English language’s impracticality, and my assumption all languages are impractical in some way

I guess you could call Lestric the language of my mind, the best way for me to represent my thoughts in language when languages have such frustrating structure to me

I was delving into linguistic definitions in a way to explain the language in a proper technical way cause i felt the need to, before realising, to describe Lestric is to define my way of thinking

Lestric has two types of words, grammatics and abstracts.

an abstract is a word with meaning

a grammatic is just a word to help structure

this language is EXTREMELY flexible, im gonna give a comparison between a lestric sentence and a pair of english sentences, and try translate as best as i can

“The river flowed north”

“the” targets “river” and “flowed” refers to “the river” and “north” refers to “flowed”

this sentence can be written as “River flow north” and it would have the same meaning, albeit being more context based

in lestric, this sentence can be written however you want basically, and there is no way to distinguish between something like “flow” and “flowed” without context or the use of another abstract indicating time

but the thing is you can combine abstracts extremely flexibly

which means i could write “the river flows north” as a single word, because we dont need “the” in most contexts e.g. rivernorthflow. All we are doing is combining ideas, so maybe you could say rivernorth with the same idea being transferred

however, communication needs to be clear sometimes, which is where we use grammatics or add more abstracts

if you look deeper into “the river flows north” the most it could be saying is “the contextual river does flow northwards”