#quaesitum

[ hello, this is like months late from when i always promised myself i’d reply later in the day and then never did bc homework and life, i am now trying to catch up, slowly ]

for a very niche detail, money in the country of lakha has pretty names: gold coins are suns, silver coins are moons, and copper ones are comets ( thank you dan @ashvayr for coming up with the last one ). one side of each coin is inscribed with its name in lakhsi ( sun is lehka; moon is darji; comet (literally “fire tear”) is kanu mahr ) and on the other there’s a symbol, a star on gold coins, an irae flower on silver coins, a tear on copper ones 

since i would benefit nothing from making weird change values, it’s a pretty simple system ( on a 12-basis like time measurement because it’s infinitely more convenient than a decimal one ) 

24 comets = 1 moon 18 moons = 1 sun 432 comets = 1 sun ( for all you maths haters )

(happy late worldbuilding wednesday because on wednesday i physically couldn’t reply to this i’m sorry)

okay so what do i like about worldbuilding

i love making up places. places are literally the best thing ever and i mostly write fantasy/fantastic so i can make up all sort of crazy stuff! and that’s cool.

so like in one of my wips there’s this maze (it’s literally called the Maze because it’s the maze) that literally goes on forever. it’s underground and constantly changing and has all sorts of cool stuff. like there are rooms with glass ceilings and rooms that are under cemeteries and ‘memory rooms’ which are basically just places made of a (dead) person’s memory. so they aren’t necessarily rooms, they might be sunny fields or the middle of the sea (underwater) or a busy city street or literally anything else. but there are also parts that are just nondescript concrete and parts that are abandoned metro tunnels and parts that are metro tunnels still in use even though the metro doesn’t exist anymore (this is post-apocalyptic) so you just have to take a chance and hope there’s no train coming. and there are parts that are just darkness (you float) and this one tunnel that is completely wrapped in tree roots and goes down real steep. and there are caves with lakes (really big caves). there’s this door that leads to a room made of glass, structured on multiple levels; you come in at the top and the only other door’s at the bottom, so you have to just find your way down and since it’s all glass you don’t really know where the walls are. there are a lot of dead ends. you can see all the way down the fifty-meter space between the top and the bottom. also even if you turn back and go back in as soon as you’re out you end up at the top again and have to go allll the way down again. everyone hates it. it’s really cool.

the only ones that can actually find their way through the maze are the sanctarians, but they have all (except two and various traitors) disappeared. this destabilized the Maze so now it’s changing… in a different way than it should be changing and not even the sanctarians can predict it accurately so it’s a mess and everyone’s getting lost

[everyone = 3 people]

another thing i like are strange traditions/rituals! or religions, that’s fun. also strange species. like, dragons? (yes this is not exactly strange let me explain)

example. in my high fantasy wip there are very few dragons, because the lakhans [despicable people] have been capturing them and using them for warfare which is stupid because not all dragons are fit for war in this world anyway let’s move on. so, at their natural individual state, these dragons are like. they are not really completely formed beings on their own? at some point they always uhh. mind-merge with another dragon because they work best in duos. like they form a mind-bond? they are still two individuals but kinda also one? it’s complicated to explain i swear it’s clearer in my mind

anyway due to the hunting and using for war a lot of dragons are dying so they can’t bond as usual, especially if they have been captured. so they have resorted to the next best thing which is bonding with humans. but not just with any human. and the lakhans have understood this so they generally capture a dragon put it in an arena and throw random unimportant prisoners at it until the dragon finds one it likes and at that point the duo will be used for warfare until they die which, statistically, happens very soon.

and one of my main characters is bonded to a dragon! the dragon’s name is kathan and it’s kinda small and blue and has a double pair of wings and the frontmost pair also acts as forefeet. obviously it can fly just fine but it can’t easily carry a person and will only do it for its bond-mate if absolutely necessary

(also these dragons don’t really… have genders that’s why i’m referring to kathan as ‘it’ but it’s technically incorrect because since kathan and its bond-mate technically share a mind the two of them will be referred to as ‘they’)

happy wednesday to you!

so i’m once more going to do this with the carmen wip and the shapeshifter story

in carmen’s world, which is… a stranger magicker sort of post-apocalyptic version of our own, stars are basically myths in and of themselves because no one ever sees them since everyone’s in the maze which is underground. there are memory rooms with memories of stars but they’re rare and dangerous. there is a rumour about this one memory room that is an astronaut’s memory, where you are literally in the middle of space and just looking out at this infinite expanse of stars everywhere around you

(no one’s ever managed to find that one though)

also there are these things called star lockets which are… sort of like memory rooms but smaller, used to trap specific memories, which unlike memory rooms can contain the memory of living people. they are called star lockets because they are seen as a symbol of hope, just like the absent stars.

in the kimaera world, no one’s actually been there. people know that scientifically they are just more distant versions of the sun but there are a whole lot of beliefs around them

for instance, the lakhans believe they are the thousand-thousand eyes of their chaos deity. they only have two gods, representing order and chaos, who basically take turns watching the human world—as in, chaos’ eyes are the stars, order’s is the sun

(in ancient times before they had actual laws a tradition said that a certain crimes if committed at night were beyond retribution. if you killed someone normal feud rules didn’t apply. of course someone else could always just kill you at night and they wouldn’t be punished either. i suppose that’s why they didn’t keep it as a law)

iloyan humans believe the stars are actually all gods. this would seem to clash with their religion as they only have, like, seven gods, but the argument is that those seven are the gods that rule over this planet. all the other stars are other gods who have their own charges and take care of different planets so they don’t need to be venerated by earthlings

(aka: aliens exist but they’re none of our business)

in dragon lore the stars represent pair-less dragons. not as bright as the sun or the moon, not as dim as the lightless humans, something in-between, half-formed creatures

kimairai don’t have myths about the stars, only tales, which are likely something they picked up from humans or dragons and twisted into different stories. or like, just made up. one says stars are all the shapes kimairai can shift into. (this story is likely meant to get children to count the stars to find out how many shapes they have, and fall asleep in the process.) another says they’re the moon’s teeth. or the sun’s tears. or snowflakes trapped in space. so on and so forth

(one particularly entertaining tale is the one where the sun and the moon were constantly fighting, the moon losing her teeth and claws in the process and the sun weeping tears of pain, until they were exiled to opposing ends of the day/night cycle. occasionally they find each other again and resume the battle and that’s why sometimes new stars appear while old ones fall to the earth, but eventually they are always set apart again. the story never says who separates them.)

TRAVEL YESSS THANK YOU 

so okay well.

see this ask for my latest ramble about the Maze, which is the main means of travel in the carmen wip (i do not guarantee it makes any kind of sense but still)

anyway

for the shapeshifter story. in lakha travel is pretty safe, because [guard posts and great road system], although not cheap. people get around by coach or horse or on foot; if you’re on foot, though, it’s better to travel in groups. nobles travel with an entourage, et cetera. the average person might team up with other travellers to split costs and discourage danger, and might only go on long trips a few times in their life unless they have some regular special/important business. they might go on shorter trips, i.e. to close villages or the neighbouring region, more often, to visit relatives or go to fairs or even (rarely) on pleasure trips.in iloya travel is much cheaper and people move around a lot more, partly because i’m counting the kimairai into ‘average people’ and they’re nomadic, partly because also human villagers and city-dwellers travel a lot. the probability of being attacked while on the road is quite high, but most travellers are prepared and can defend themselves. other than that, travel is mostly safe (and also cheap) because of hospitality rules, also one of their (not many) gods is the special protector of travellers so you can imagine how important travel is. people mostly get around on foot (and more rarely horses for speed) and set up camps at night, because there isn’t really a road system and villages and taverns are few and far between. if you do get to a house, however, you can be almost sure to find shelter and food, for free, because of the aforementioned hospitality rules. it is not advisable to stray deep into the forests after dark, approach camps other than yours, and go much farther north than the last village (that is kimaera territory and the gods will not protect you there).inter-continental travel is done by ship and the ones providing passage for civilians are mostly merchants and some pirates. actually they’re mostly pirates and some merchants, because trying to get passage on a merchant ship is like… who the hell wants to go from one continent to the other? man, those places are like different universes. they’ve got to be running from something, i bet they’re tangled in some shady business—i’m sorry sir, no place for your unlawful dealings on my respectable merchant ship. whereas pirates are less nosy and less picky, and the risk of violent death isn’t that high after all, so oh well.and about the scenery—all i’ll say is this: in the north you can sometimes see dragons or, if you stray too close to the mountains, dragon-caves (enormous hive-structures, labyrinthic, mostly empty, you will get lost). and in the south there are oases in the desert that are particularly dangerous and also particularly popular. don’t ask why. many people die every year even though the security measures have been updated several times. there is one particularly tricky stretch of sea off the western-northern coast that is basically one big underwater maze. yes they’re all sunken ships. no you don’t want to know how many, or how they sunk. trust me.

It is night.

A shadow detaches itself from the forest right where it meets the edge of the sleeping city. Really, there is no border between the two; simply less and less trees, and then the first houses.

The shadow dances in the streets, wading through the light cones of the street lamps. It is looking for one house in particular, where something is going to happen—and no one is going to notice for a long, long time.

And there it is. A small, beautiful old thing, tall and crooked and covered in ivy. A man and a woman sleep a light, fragile sleep on the topmost floor, poised on the edge of wakefulness, ready to spring at the first sign of unease of the child lying in the cradle by their bedside.

But they don’t wake. Not when the shadow slips through the door, not when it climbs the stairs—they always creak, but they don’t, not this time. The shadow is silent, and so they don’t wake when it opens the door and steps—glides—into the room, nor when it kneels by the small cradle and the baby sleeping inside.

It is the first time in days the child is quiet, though the shadow doesn’t know that. Her face is angelic, tilted to the side, her eyes flitting from one side to the other under closed lids—she’s dreaming. The shadow regards her for a long moment, then turns its face, hidden by its hood, to the bundle in its own arms. A second child is there, though this one isn’t asleep. She’s observing the other baby with keen eyes. The shadow shifts her to one arm and reaches for the sleeping, human child with the other.

Only then does the mother stir. Is it a bad dream? The unconscious knowledge that something is wrong? (But in the end, does it really matter?) She opens her eyes, and notices how the silence is too silent, and then that the darkness is too dark, and she looks at the window and sees that the moonlight is blocked by the figure kneeling on the other side of the cradle. She watches, paralyzed, as the shadow reaches inside and plucks the baby from it, laying a different figure in its place with strange, tender care. 

She is up and on her feet in the space of a moment, but the shadow springs away and onto the windowsill. The woman rushes to the cradle and sees a child asleep. And the child looks nearly the same as her own—but only nearly. And she says, or screams, or whispers, Stop!

The shadow turns, and the hood falls back from her face, and there she is, not quite right, with that silver hair and those pointed ears and that face that looks like water but is sharp as ice.

And there she is, the woman’s little girl, asleep in the fae’s arms.

The fae smiles, and the woman bristles, even though it is a kind, sad smile (with only the very points of her very sharp teeth visible). I can’t, says the fae. We need her.

Please, the woman says. Please don’t go. Please don’t take her away.

And the fae hesitates, because she understands—the woman is losing her child, but the fae is, too, and it hurts—but only for a second, because it has to be done. I can’t, she repeats, and thinks, it’s better this way. She thinks, by morning, she will forget. The child will forget. Life will go on.

Because a woman may plead, and a fae may weep, but it won’t change anything—because the Court needs humans, and the city needs magic, and life is ruthless and the world doesn’t care.

The night breathes, and the city slides back into sleep, and the fae runs away, a shadow once more—invisible and unheard—and disappears into a painting.

The sun rises and washes memories away, coating them in the haze of dreams. And if, growing up, the child has eyes that are a bit too dark, or hair that is a bit too shiny, no one thinks much of it.

And life goes on.

that’s terrible. i’m so sorry. damn tumblr 

i hope whatever happened gets solved soon and you get your blog back!