#millennium cycle

:D!! happy WBW to you too, Lila!!! im glad to be doing it again <3<3<3

also this got super long so i’m putting a read more in the middle :D

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Other than the Fall of Fahrial, there are a few historical references in Firebreathers, yes!

The most prominent ones outside of that tend to be in about other past Decays or Growths! If I remember correctly, the first mentioned is probably the Vocal Growth - which is the basis for their current calendar, fun fact! - which is what brought about a magical Common form of all languages, as well as introducing other linguistic magics (i.e. Calling) to the world. This was almost two full Cycles before Firebreathers (the year is ~3994 at the start), and was kind of known for being the first real opportunity for everyone everywhere to connect with people outside of their locality easily.

Another Growth that’s mentioned a lot was the Bloody Growth, which,,, is a bit of a scary name, fitting for the pretty scary magic brought with it. This was when humans were given Runic magic, and was the Growth before the Eternal Three!

Decays also have a lot of influence on the world and history, and as such, they tend to take a much bigger focus when the characters are in the areas that were affected. So, in Sieril, there’s a lot of reference to the Rillian Decay, which hit in the year 1000, and effectively reshaped Sieril from a prosperous, populated land, into one swarming with dangerous creatures and ruins of civilization. Even now, nearly 3000 years later, the Sharali are affected by the diseases introduced, and Sieril only has a few livable cities overall. (Veratrum has spearheaded aid efforts to help the Sharali during her reign, but due to the magical nature of a lot of the diseases, they’ve hardly made progress overall.)

Another Decay that’s brought up quite a bit is the one that happened before year 0 - I haven’t come up with a great name for it yet, but for now, I call it the Eqian Decay, after the continent it affected.

It’s a good idea here to note that there is no Eqia on the Ehlverse maps.

Hi, Hunter!!! Happy STS to you too!!!!

I’m happy you like him!!!

For anyone who sees this and doesn’t know, his full name + title is Divine King Tieling Evergreen, and he’s the main villain of Firebreathers book one! I’ve also got a portrait of him in the WIP intro!

To answer your questions:

About 950 years before the events of Firebreathers, one of the Priestesses of Nimia (a bit more on them here and here) began speaking a Prophecy that basically predicted the end of all magics in existence. Which, y’know, would be a very bad thing, considering how much the world depends on it. She predicted that this would be part of the Decay that was already on it’s way.

About 30 years later, Tieling Evergreen was born to another one of the Priestesses. Not wholly uncommon; there were a few other kids that year, as the Priestesses were trying to get as many prophecies as possible for guidance. His mother, however, was speaking another Prophecy, relating to the Decay, and who could stop it. Prophecies are pretty vague, usually, because it’s hard to translate the language of Ehl itself into, like, a language you could actually understand, and so Tieling was determined to be the Chosen One, since his birth was what triggered the prophecy to start in the first place.

Because of this prophecy, and the general belief that he was the one to stop the Decay, he’s become kind of a demigod to a lot of people. That, coupled with being immortal (learn more about how that happened here and here*), has really made him both a mythic figure, and a major part of the Ehlven sects of Mayhism.

* tldr: he completed his quest, and the goddesses smote a city to grant him and his partner in the journey immortality, while still keeping some semblance of balance

Thank you so much for your questions!!!! I hope you don’t mind me adding my taglists, I realized I haven’t talked about him much, and he’s really important from both a worldbuilding and story standpoint!

a;lfdkja;sdlfkj thank you asena!! i just saw this ;alskdfa;sflkj

I’m always really proud of my magic systems! Ehl has been a really fun way to practice building those, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job!! I’ve listed most of the different distinct types on Ehl in a previous WBW ask, but!!! I haven’t really talked about the nuances and types of worldly magic that exist!!

So, the Worldly Magic of Ehl is most commonly seen as the source of the Millennium Cycle (more info here), which is basically a cycle where, every thousand years, either a Growth (creation of a magic/people/species/etc) or a Decay (extinction of a magic/people/species/etc) happens in an instant, and it’s one of the most important things both in Ehlverse lore, as well as in the world’s cultures themselves.

However, Worldly Magic is responsible for so much more than just the Cycle. 

For one, it’s what the Priestesses of Nimia tap into when incurring Prophecies, and that is just a well-trained use of Flexing (a little more on that at the bottom of this post), which is another way people can harness the Worldly Magic. 

There’s also this concept called Death Circles on Ehl, which kind of take the place of the necromancy I was going to include in the early stages of the world - basically, whenever someone or something dies, Ehl herself will hold onto their memory in a specific area around where they died. How long the memory is held, and how big of a space it occupies, depends on two things: how many people were killed in that spot at once, and how horrific their death was.

If you’ve read about the Ruins of Fahrial on here before, you can probably see where this is going a;lsfja;sldfkj

The Ruins of Fahrial are home to the biggest Death Circle ever recorded - of course, because 50,000 people were killed there in minutes - and not only that, but it’s still there, almost 1000 years later.

What does this mean for the living? Basically, the whole area is “haunted”, in a slightly weird sense. Anyone can encounter the Echoes of the people who died in the smite, and kind of witness what their life was like, for a few seconds - but anyone who has ever known someone who is now dead can find that someone there, too. It might take a while of hanging out in the ruins; spirits can only travel from their death point at their walking speed during life. But if you stay there long enough, you might be able to see them again.

The Worldly Magic is responsible for a lot of time-related things, really. I’ll probably delve into more of them in a later post, just so I have more things to talk about then, haha.

Thank you again for the ask!! I hope you don’t mind others being tagged in this, too, cause I figure it’s a good one for the worldbuilding taglist!

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Ehlverse Worldbuilding Taglist:

Thank you, Raev!!

I’ve talked about how Brandon Sanderson is one of my biggest inspirations for worldbuilding/writing in general a lot on here, but I’m also really inspired by the Avatar universe, and my brother is really good at letting me bounce ideas off of him, when I need to!

Something cool I’ve come up with? Hmmmm... personally, I think the magic systems. I’ve done a WBW ask about the Elementalism system, which I need to make a separate post for, but I really like how all of them fit together and influence each other?

Thank you for the ask, ada!! This is pretty late, cause I’ve been trying to think how to word the answer for a few days al;dkjfa;ldkf

Militaries on Ehl are vastly different depending on where they’re from, obviously, but if I’m being honest, I’ve only really thought over how the ones on Maelani work haha. In my head, the Mudskippers, Fairies, and Drenn don’t really... have a use for them. They’re a pretty peaceful bunch, overall, and are anarchist societies, so they don’t have governments to fund a military in the first place. Sharali don’t have the numbers for a formal military any more, and Saythe haven’t had a need for one in millennia, so they’re out of the picture by default. And the city-states of Emarye rely more on drafting than standing militaries, and their leaders are painfully aware that war is a good way to get ousted from power.

However!! On Maelani, there are a lot of peoples with conflicting worldviews crammed into a relatively small space. 

For instance, the Goblins and Dwarves have a loooong history of war, mostly because of the Forges and the fact that Dwarves won’t teach just anyone how their magic works, even though it’s entirely possible to learn, and isn’t tied to genetics in the slightest. Both have formidable armies, in their own ways; Goblins have electric guns, hovershoes, and real-time camouflaging gear that make it difficult for anyone without the same stuff to fight against, where Dwarves have traditional-looking medieval weapons that are made and enchanted specifically to fuck over Goblins and their gear. Like, magical EMPs built into their armor, and insulated shields that bounce laser shots back at them. 

Humans and Ehlves, on the other hand, haven’t had particularly bad relations with others for centuries. But that doesn’t stop them from keeping a standing military or two.

Human troops are usually specially trained to use Runes, which are basically blood sigils that let them do crazy things with time and space. (Like, teleporting, not time travel. That would take a ridiculous amount of blood.) The difference between the soldiers and the Runesmen, though, is that soldiers do long-lasting ones pre-battle, like giving themselves more speed, and Runesmen just carve the sigils into themselves as they need them. Needless to say, Runesmen are generally more skilled and less expendable in the eyes of the general.

Ehlves tend to set up their squadrons with a good balance of Mages, 3-5 of the more common ones, 2-4 of the less common, at least 2 Healers, and maybe a Light Mage, if they’re lucky. This allows for a variety of skills and fighting styles within the teams, and it’s generally been a pretty good set up, especially for dealing with uprisings and skirmishes. Their Navy generally puts several of these squads on a big ship, so they keep that balance, and probably a few extra Healers and Plant mages, just in case.

Thanks, Keena!!!! It makes plenty of sense, dont worry alsdkfa

I’ve talked about Vervain flowers, purple, and the general dragon motif being symbols of the goddess Venn in a past WBW, but as for good luck symbols and other symbolic animals in-world, I have plenty!

See, part of the creation mythos for Mayhism includes Venn (goddess of magic), Delta (goddess of change), and Vii (goddess of life) doing a big ol’ collaboration project over a few hundred thousand years and several hundred Growths and Decays to bring about life on Ehl as it stands today. But, while those goddess-influenced things were happening, life was still evolving like normal, and pretty much every time a new sentient species arose, like Ehlves or Humans, they would come about as like... a weird Thanos snap. Half of an animal species would suddenly have sentience and a new body to play around with, often with some wacky powers, too.

To put it in a better way, for example, the first Ehlves were created from some long-eared lemurs, and granted Elemental powers as they were created. That species of lemur is still around in the middle latitudes of Deltierin, but it’s changed a lot since then, and Ehlves are also still just chilling, existing as they do. Kind of like what would happen if evolution happened in a snap for half of the species.

Now, what does this have to do with in-world symbolism??

Some of the people of Ehl are much newer than others - Drenn, for example, have only been around for about 4,000 14,000 years. And even though that’s a long time, they’re still written as Fruit Dragons in literary works throughout Ehl. Or, take Mudskippers, who have been around for about 6,000 years and still call themselves by the name of the fish they came from. 

Basically, if you want a weird, slightly niche symbol for another people on Ehl, just use the things those people came from. It’s sometimes shitty, and not a lot of people will like it, but it’s there and has been done before.