#modah

All my stories take place in a fantasy world called the Pentagonal Dominion. It's a collection of planes connected to Earth, but I don't include humans (with one exception). Any time I mention a year, it's that world's year, not in any way connected to years on Earth.

Please be aware that ALL my books are for 18+ only. Though they vary in the exact kind of content, you can expect them all to include some degree of violence, swearing, sexual content, or dark themes not appropriate for MG or YA books.

Map of the PD made by @dewiwrites

Hello, Tumblr. My name is Erika, or Kira. I go by either. She/her pronouns please. I’ve been worldbuilding a fantasy world for over 20 years now and writing as a hobby. I am now pursuing writing for publication and I anticipate releasing my first novel into the world late this year or sometime next year. ALL my books will take place in the world I’ve been developing, called the Pentagonal Dominion. My posts here will largely be about the worldbuilding relevant to all my books, or may be about the plot/characters of a book in particular. I currently have three books planned, but I have dozens more in my head I want to write eventually.

I call my subgenre “Rainbow Fantasy” because none of the currently-existing subgenre names really appeal to me. It embodies aspects of high, epic, dark, and queer fantasy, but leaves out some of the expectations. I will make a post about Rainbow Fantasy later.

Things you can expect in all my books:

-FANTASY

-Intense worldbuilding. I don’t skimp on this shit

-Did I say shit? Yes I did. I curse. A lot. My characters do too.

-Sex, too. My books are never full-fledged erotica, but they have erotic moments, and plenty of kinks.

-Queer characters. Cisheteronomativity was never a *thing* in the Pentagonal Dominion, so there are always LGBTQ+ characters in my world, living their best lives.

-A disturbing lack of humans. While the Pentagonal Dominion is *connected* to Terra, and there are humans who appear once in a while, for the most part, all my characters are distinctly non-human. The PD features 88 species of sapient people, some humanoid, and some most definitely not.

-Families, both biological and found/adopted. Parents who are still alive. Parents who are the heroes.

-An absolute RANGE of villains. I love writing villains, and I’ll always have one, but they range from sexist terfs who use men as chairs to wholesome fathers who are just trying to create a better world for their children.

Merchants of Knowledge and Magic (MoKaM), my debut novel, in the editing phase, is about an intersex asexual dragonfly-person, Calinthe (she/her), a merchant of knowledge. As a Mind elemental, she is forbidden from using money by the tenets of her religion. Instead, she travels the planes of the Pentagonal Dominion in search of secrets and information to trade. She is accompanied by her best friend, Zakuro (she/her), a merchant of magic. As a Godblood (descendant of the Gods), Zakuro can use magic. Specifically, she can enchant objects to ‘hold’ magic so other people can enjoy the effects. The plot focuses on Calinthe’s search for her boss’s missing demonic henchman, who Calinthe believes to have been kidnapped by the Ophidians, a nation of female supremacists who enslave anyone they don’t deem to be ‘a woman.’ As an intersex person, Calinthe risks her own freedom by venturing into Ophidia, though she has Zakuro’s illusionism powers to keep her safe.

Merchants of Light and Bone (MoLaB), in the drafting phase, is about a bisexual polyamorous lion-man, Amiere (he/him), a merchant of light with a big family. He carves sculptures out of crystals that glow for about 80 years once they’ve been mined. He has a wife Liesle (she/her) and a nonbinary, transneutral husband Su (he/him), who is a merchant of bone. The plot focuses on family dynamics and grief, as the story starts the day after one of Amiere’s daughters died in a freak earthquake accident… in a world where plate tectonics doesn’t exist and earthquakes have never happened. In fact, they don’t have a word for it, and they certainly wouldn’t call it ‘earthquake’ because they recognize “Earth” as being the mysterious land of Terra. Amiere believes the quake to be an act of the Gods, punishing him for being so proud of that daughter.

Purple for mystery, magic, and mysticism

For twilight clouds, violet nudibranchs, and a basket of mangosteens

For magic spells, demonic rituals, and secret societies

For near-omniscient gods and the one thing they do not know

For words that will fill you with awe

White for dread, loneliness, and purity

For snow, skulls, and swan feathers

For dancers praying for a better future

For the heroes and villains creating that future

For words that will chill you to your bones

Brown for warmth, solidity, and comfort

For rich soil, wood and brick houses, and chocolate cake

For a lover’s gentle touch and lusciously long hair

For found families, rescued children, and unconditional love

For words that will feel like a warm hug

Black for darkness, torture, and sin

For ebony, crows, obsidian, and coal

For the cruelest acts imaginable done in the darkest dungeons

For torture, assault, and the pettiness of powerful rulers

For words that will haunt your dreams

Rainbow Fantasy, the subgenre I invented to describe my own books, could be described as a mix of High, Epic, Dark, and Queer fantasy. Yet it also fails to incorporate certain expectations of those subgenres, hence my hesitation using those labels. Let me explain, using examples from my world:

What is High Fantasy? It takes place in a different world than ours, usually with magic, unique creatures/monsters, spirits/gods/demons, and usually pre-Modern tech. My world features a lot of that, but I hesitate to call it high fantasy because there’s a lot of science going on as well. The mortal world may not have advanced technology due to being unable to harness electricity, but they have the knowledge of how it *should* work. The Ophidians have guns, Ulinor has nuclear energy, the Takyufon and Carinians have mechanical parts, the afterlife *does* have advanced tech… and the future of the mortal world is steampunk. If I advertised my books as High Fantasy and then delivered a book that takes place primarily in Ulinor or Takyu City, with a non-magical, mortal Takyufon MC, readers would feel they didn’t get anything they expected.

What is Epic Fantasy? I feel Epic Fantasy is similar to High Fantasy, but with more allowances for tech/sci fi elements. On the other hand, it implies something, well, epic is happening. The world is ending. A war is occurring. Magic is running rampant. Many of my books are simply *not* epic in scale. They follow a single MC—who may be a normal person in their world—and the only things at stake are things relevant to the MC. If Calinthe fails her quest, the only one who suffers is Calinthe (and Zakuro). If Amiere fails, the only one who suffers is Amiere. Tynan… okay, Tynan’s book is probably a bit more epic than most lol. But that’s another thing: the label “Rainbow Fantasy” is meant to embody *all* my books. I don’t want to have to say “Well MoKaM is High Fantasy, but MoDaH is Epic Fantasy and MoLaB is… Slice of Life Fantasy?” Nah, bro, I’m just gonna say they’re ALL Rainbow Fantasy.

What is Dark Fantasy? It means there’s gonna be some pretty gritty stuff in here. Death, dismemberment, war, torture, rape, cannibalism, horror. Plus sexual elements, maybe even some kinks. To be clear, not ALL Dark Fantasy books need every one of those (I saw a topic the other day where someone had a friend who thought all Dark Fantasy needed rape. I am not implying that!) My books feature quite a bit of adult material, but I wouldn’t call them Dark Fantasy because… there are a lot of really tender, sweet moments. Maybe more so than the dark moments. Like, if I advertised MoLaB as Dark Fantasy, I’d feel like a fraud. It certainly *is* dark, especially in the later half, but that’s not exactly the part I can advertise spoiler-free lol. And if you just LOOK at it… I mean, my art for MoLaB usually depicts bright, sunny beaches, lovely merpeople, cute children. It doesn’t look ‘dark’ at all.

What is Queer Fantasy? Honestly not sure this is a subgenre at all, but it kinda feels like it? Books that take place in a fantasy setting and there’s emphasis on the characters being LGBTQ+? In any case, my world is queernormative and every book has queer people, but it’s just life as usual to them. The stories are never *about* their sexual or gender identity. It might play a powerful role, especially in stories where Ophidia is involved, but they probably won’t resonate with readers looking for stories about characters “coming out” or “going through a transition” because my characters aren’t going to experience the same kind of shame or oppression as real-world characters would.

So to sum up, Rainbow Fantasy is: a non-Earth setting, usually with magic/spirits/gods/non-human people/invented animals, but can include tech. The plots range from ‘the world is ending’ to ‘sculptor grives over his dead daughter.’ There’s some nasty shit, but also some super wholesome and loving shit. And queer is normal and accepted.

Yellow for whimsy, wealth, and weariness

For carambolas, pineapples, and daffodils

For golden rings, golden turtle shells, and golden locks of hair

For the countless grains of sand on distant shores and windswept dunes

For words that will inspire nostalgia

Green for wisdom, knowledge, and trickery

For sprawling forests, culinary herbs, climbing vines, and ancient moss

For a riddle steeped in foreshadowing

For alchemical potions, a cell membrane, the flagellum of a bacterium

For words that will get your brain thinking

Blue for freedom, sorrow, and expression

For endless skies, magical oceans, and butterflies on morning glories

For artists and architects designing undersea cities

For screaming heavenward the injustice of gods

For words that will make you wonder and weep

No, I’m not here to describe all eighty-eight lol. Actually, my plan is to write short bios about each of them and post maybe four or so at random intervals? Depends on how long it would take to write them up, it could be weekly or just whenever I finish. In the future, I’d love to have artwork of all 88, but of course that takes a lot of time and money lol.

Currently, I have art of specific characters of the following species. An asterisk means that species is represented in at least one character I have art of:

A note on my invented word ‘sapienti.’ Some might be asking “Erika, why don’t you just call them sapient?” I do, quite often in fact. However, when I was writing my books, I found that ‘sapient’ didn’t always do what I wanted it to do. ‘Sapienti’ is essentially my fantasy-world’s version of the word ‘human.’ If a characters stumbles across the bones of a person, they would refer to the bones as “sapienti bones” meaning “the bones of a sapienti person.” Imagine instead if they’d referred to them as “sapient bones.” That makes it sound like the bones themselves are alive and chatting with you!

So how did a world manage to get eighty-eight different species of people living in it? Time travel, son. The world is only 1450 years old anyway. Ain’t no evolving from a single-celled organism in that amount of time!

Many of the sapienti species evolved over billions of years in timelines that the Time Spirit left alone to just let nature take its course. These are usually the more “human-looking” species. Ones with opposable thumbs or which can otherwise use tools.

Some species were made sapient by the blessing of a Mind God. Wynnles came from lions. Yosoe came from goats. All the insect-based species came from, well, insects lol. In the Pentagonal Dominion timeline I write about, there were actually only 87 sapienti species to begin with. The Domovye (singular: Domovoi) were animals. They would be yoked together and trained to dig deep underground, uncovering metals for their sapienti masters. This was seen as no different than yoking oxen to plow a field, or dogs to a sleigh, or a horse to a carriage. The Domovye turned sapient overnight by the blessing of Lucognidus. His purpose in doing so was to punish Ulinor, whose dictator refused to accept the (at the time) new Spiritism religion. Ulinor was the primary civilization that used Domovye as working animals. The Ulese lived underground and needed the Domovye to keep their city functional. But the Ulese abhorred slavery, so when the Domovye became sapient, they could no longer be forced to work.

Many of the species are capable of interbreeding, largely thanks to Life elemental magic. Biologically, without magic, most of them would not work. Their chromosomes would be incompatible or the sperm wouldn’t be able to merge with the egg. Life element magic just “makes it work, damn it.” It will fuck around with genetics until it creates something that can exist. I made this chart a while ago when I was playing a game with some people to create demigods:

It shows how some interbreeding works, but it was within the context of a certain time and place. For instance, the Morenzi can interbreed with any of the others that aren’t in colored boxes, but they currently live in the Quarantined Plane, so none of their hybrids currently exist. It also says Odonata cannot interbreed, but the entire point of Calinthe is that she’s the first and only Odonata hybrid.

The Pentagonal Dominionists use specific language to describe sapienti based on the number of limbs they have. A human might be described as a biped-bibrach (two legged and two armed). A few sapienti look a lot like humans, including the Olivians, Ulese, Umi, Omi, Yetrians, and Myralese. In these cases, the things that make them non-human are deeper than their appearances. Olivians will bond strongly to whoever they first have sex with. Ulese have advanced intelligence. Umi and Omi can control certain internal functions which are automatic and uncontrollable in humans. Yetrians can eat things that a human’s stomach would reject. Myralese are Ice elementals and can survive in frozen environments.

Note that I use ‘nullped’ for species without legs (Domovye, second-stage Orochijin, Poltergeists, Mizura). There is a single monoped species: the Collembola. They have a leg and a tail. They mostly get around by hopping on their tail, but their single leg helps to balance them.

Yet some of these species are so weird and nonhuman that describing them is… difficult. I still don’t have art of Päivi, who is fairly prominent in MoKaM, because I tremble at the idea of trying to describe her to an artist. xD

Many of my species are aquatic, too! Or at least *can* live and breathe underwater if they choose. Aquatic/water-breaking species include: Anemone, Daga, Ephemeropteran, Flora, Foma, Hemipteran, Kraken, Mizura, Phasmida (they can transform into other species, so a Phasmida wouldn’t drown likely because they could transform into someone else), Piniko, Poltergeist, Rubaiyan, Selachi, Sin-Derion, Thysanura, Tsuru, Vodyanoi, Zullia.

Wings are another common feature. Everything that has ‘pteran’ at the end of its name has wings. Other winged species include the Winyans, Pellas, Tsuru, Noklopae, Subrikae, and Nilians.

A few species are extinct in the time period the Merchants novels take place in. The Tellia and Pokki were exterminated by demons when the demons were first created and wanted to take over their homeland. The Mujin went extinct when the Death God Sawyer lost control of his powers in a fit of despair.

A few of these species are also so few in number that a person could go their whole life without meeting one. These include: Odonata, Iur, Mabera, and Phasmida. Technically Phasmida change into other species, so their true numbers are unknown. A Phasmida might live a lifetime in the body of another species and never tell their neighbors that they’re actually a Phasmida. The only one who has made her identity known is Mira, the Chancellor of Aloutia. Because Phasmida only age in the bodies they are currently using, they are effectively immortal. Mira has been the Chancellor since the founding of the Aloutian Empire. She has existed in the Pentagonal Dominion since its beginning. She is actually over 50,000 years old because she’s the Time Spirit’s toy, and she keeps getting put in alternate timelines.

In-world, people might refer to the sapienti species by other numbers. Some will say 87 because they’re excluding the Morenzi, who are unknown to everyone on Aloutia, Cosmo, Ophidia, and the Makai. Some will say 84 because they’re also excluding the three extinct species.

Some species have body parts that naturally produce elementrons, but they can only be used for specific types of ‘magic’ e.g. the Sin-Derion have teeth enchanted to shoot Death elemental beams. Wynnles have electric tails. Yosoe have electric horns. Most winged species have Wind elementrons to allow them to fly because otherwise their bodies would be too heavy/awkward for flight. Daga shells are gold, but enchanted to float on water. Sounites have fire for hair. It’s a whole lotta fun to design all these people!

I coined a new term for what I write: Rainbow Fantasy

Some dark, some light, all queer

Colorful worlds, colorful characters, colorful emotions

My stories involve magic mingling with science, like the sun’s rays mingling with moisture

Red for passion, love, anger, and hatred

For pomegranates, pitayas, and higanbana

For war and love, for fighting and fucking

For expensive wine spilled on extravagant silk gowns

For words that will get your heart pounding

Orange for happy, lighthearted days

For pumpkins, kumquats, and autumn leaves

For the many suns that shine upon many worlds

For children laughing on beaches beyond the reach of humans

For words that will make you smile

"My body could become anything I willed. This blob did not suit an exquisite soul as mine. I was a Godblood, illustrious, fearsome, and worthy of reverence. My vessel ought to take a shape befitting a glorious personage such as myself."

Quote from MERCHANTS OF DANCE AND HEDONISM