Lovejoy

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

Okay, I sent @Scout his prompt. His next post should be... interesting.

@shylarah @CollectorOfMyst

I'm going to get to work on your reply next! After which I'll have a post for the Lanostre group.

@Drakey

Yooo! Where you at homey? :)

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

The Bright season could definitely be warmer.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

Okay, I say we go with shy's days of the week and Draken's seasons proposal, and just keep the calendar to twelve months. Now for month names...

I love the idea of luminosity being the main reason behind seasons, since the temperature is generally just "fucking cold" all the time. :p

Hm, what if we just had two seasons for two halves of the year? The Bright season and the Dark season. Would this work?

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@CollectorOfMyst It's almost as if they're cursed. >_>

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

Oh and I like what you came up with for the days! We could use those!

As for the stars, moon and any other celestial objects, they are visible everywhere except Varya itself, where the sky is either a stark featureless white or a muddy dark grey.

As for the sun, I've hinted at this in the IC, but it exists as a sort of unknown, nameless entity that society has been conditioned to sort of ignore and endure. It lights up the world, but provides no heat, so it's just kind of part of the landscape. Some also view the sun as having a connection to the Fire Titan, which further adds to the strange custom of ignorance surrounding it.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@shylarah You're right. The fall of Omestris does seem to have happened too recently. I think that's kind of by design though. The idea of having it happen just 130 years ago is so that the legacy of their civilization and culture is still fresh in mind for a lot of Omestrians, but any kind of ownership of that history is stomped out by Varyan society. Like, just a few generations ago their culture still prospered, which actually works against them too, since the concept of Omestris as a nation of dark heretics is still fresh in mind to most of imperial society, which is why until very recently people have been largely unbothered with the horrible conditions in which Omestrian slaves are treated. The fall of Omestris was pretty also pretty sudden, and there are mysterious circumstances surrounding the actual destruction of Iddin-Mar. They didn't really fight back.

Also, I should mention that the life expectancy in this world is very low. Not a lot of people survive long enough to be grandparents.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@shylarahYup. Good thing I put it on there!

Also, I'm finally working on a concrete timeline! ME 130 is the current year, ME standing for "Magnagrad Era". 130 years have passed since the end of the invasion campaign against Omestris, Muraad and T'sarae and subsequently, the beginning of Magnagrad's construction.
The LW ended on the year ME 109.

Now I need to figure out how days, months and seasons work...

This goes out to everyone-- any ideas at all for how this would work? I'm contemplating using an Earth-like calendar in order to not overcomplicate things, but I'm not sure how the state of this world would affect that, both scientifically and culturally. Like how do arctic cultures view the seasons? Anyone have any input on this? I'm also looking for ideas on the names of days, months, ect.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

By the way, if anyone doesn't know what the last bit of dialogue means, I wrote about this specific phrase a while ago.

Veshi'maru, Vashi'mara: One of the few surviving phrases of the ancient Omestrian language. It translates to "Come in Darkness, Proceed in Light". In modern times the phrase has been adopted by Omestrian slaves as a signal, its runic form used to denote safe havens and places of safe passage. This phrase is taught by Omestrian slave parents to their young so that they might recognize its meaning if they ever attempted to escape.

Also, there's been mention of something called the Narrow Gates and I just realized I haven't explained what that is!

The Narrow Gates: For the vast part of human history, the East has been closed off to the empire due in part to the strange, unnatural blizzards that violently dance across the frozen oceans as well as the colossal ice barrier beyond the Meridian (the easternmost point of land where Varya's explorers have ventured). Six years ago, a breakage in the monstrous eastern ice shelf had been predicted by the T'saraen MUSE Academy to occur on the summer of ME 130, the year our story takes place. This breakage would be the first time in history that a passage would open within the shelf. This passage, dubbed the "Narrow Gates" coupled with the advent of modern Hearth Systems which allow steam arks and their crews to survive out in the storms, has allowed the Varyan empire to finally journey eastward through the ice shelf and into the unknown eastern hemisphere.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@shylarah Sure! We can have a small aside with Aleksandre and Ziotea having a conversation. I actually have a pretty cool idea for a little character thing that might lead to interesting stuff with Magnus. PM me something to reply to!

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@shylarah Oh gods a scene between Aleksandre and Ziotea would be... wow :p