The Four is the oldest original novel idea I still intend to write someday. I first came up with the idea when I was twelve! At the time, it was very heavily (and obviously) derivative of LotR and Prydain, and the spark of inspiration came from the little-known book The Great and Terrible Quest by Margaret Lovett. It's undergone many changes in the years since then, and I still need to do a lot of work to make it a viable story, particularly in terms of antagonists (the original villain I came up with was very one-dimensional and needs to either go or be changed so completely as to be unrecognizable, because right now it's just boring).

But the core concept has remained the same for over twenty years: Timor is a twelve-year-old boy who was discovered in the woods at the age of four, somehow managing to survive on his own without ever having encountered human beings before. He is raised by Lord Avadris, who was the High King's most valued councilor and best friend until the king was killed and the land fell into anarchy. Timor learns to speak and act more or less like a civilized person, but still carries some quirks and many, many fears from his experiences as a small child. He's terrified of basically everything.

And then, when he stumbles upon some dusty old boxes, he finds a golden circlet meant for a boy about his age, and puts it on, discovering that it fits perfectly. Lord Avadris sees him, and finally realizes what he should have put together immediately, but had been denying to himself: Timor is the spitting image of the High King. No one knew that the king and queen had had a child, but there's no mistaking it. Timor is the long-lost heir to the throne.

And so now they have to take him to the High King's castle and reveal him to the world as their king...which is something not everyone is too excited about. Various factions set out to kill him, forcing him to run for his life. And Timor himself doesn't even want to be king! But it doesn't matter, because he still has a target on his back whether he wants it or not.

Oh he'd try, sure.

The problem is that the Synchronization is literally a symptom of being Four-Sword-Split, and there's... no medicine for that. The only real cure for a Synch Headache is to Stop Being Synched, aka put the sword back and stop being split. For obvious, time-travel reasons, that's not a viable option at the moment.

Unfortunately I don't think this is as interesting of an answer as you're hoping it will be. The Four look like Link, and so of course Link looks like the Four. For all intents and purposes, he looks exactly the same.

matrilineality is just obvious to me and makes the whole kinship system a bit more interesting. like maternal cousins would likely be classified as siblings in this culture, whereas only paternal cousins would be cousins. if they get a special kinship term at all beyond close relative.

anyway I've had that idea for a few years already, but I've just been reading about Aksumite royal styles and one thing is that the kings' clan names don't really make sense and seem kinda random. one of the more convincing theories is that although royal succession was a male line father to son, their clan names were passed down by the queen-mother, i.e. matrilineally ! which I am really excited about (note it's in the meroïtic kingdom of Kush to the north that we have records for women ruling in their own right, or along with their sons, with the title candace/kandake)

this is what I'm thinking phonology-wise for the conlang. I like it æsthetically and it is fundamentally for an artlang, nevertheless, I would still like it to be [fairly] naturalistic

Consonants: m n ɲ / p t c k ʔ / s ð sʲ x h / w r l ʎ j

my concern is that /ð/, as the lone voiced sound among stops and fricatives, seems out of place. and I feel like the shift from /ʃ/ > /sj/ is a bit suspect...