Member
ctrlsaltdel
Noctis
Thanqol
Phoe
rabidbacon
Damycles
Cao the Exiled
Bugman
shylarah
Guardian Angel HarukiTHE NIGHT SKY
…is a dome, and the wellspring of magic. The stars are faintly visible while the sun is illuminated, and move faster than stars back home; they all have names, like the Hawk, or the Rose, or the Drummer. The sun is a crystal globe illuminated from within, and the moon is connected to the earth by a delicate, spiraling silver road. The moon is home to the Lunarians, a high-magitech civilization with a penchant for astronaut-style armor and flying ships. They're the ones who make the spirit tablets.
THE CENTER
…is comprised of the Mountains of Kel, building up to the impossibly tall Moonhorn and the Lunar Causeway. The mountains are a labyrinth of fortresses, fastnesses, monasteries, mines, fortifications, and hidden passages. Aboveground, it is extremely windy, inhospitable, and difficult to find a way upwards that is not blocked by old walls or snowdrifts, despite the soaring bridges between mountains. Fortunately, most stone hubs have extensive infrastructure surrounding them. Here, light is captured in crystals; here, forbidding exteriors hide sumptuous interiors; here, the Kel facilitate trade between Thellamie and her moon, and keep anything that has fallen from rising again.
THE NORTH
…is full of trees. No, more than that. Thick, deep-rooted trees, drinking deeply of the light. They whisper, they stir, they grow walkers. It had a perilous reputation even before the Shadow of the Wood was buried here, but it was tempered with adventure and chivalry. Now only the forest remains, and the knights that emerge are made of dead wood walking. Here be monsters; emerging from a stone hub here will find you standing among ruins, or a barrow of roots, or suddenly tangled to the earth by weeds. And for what? Flowers glowing with inner light, cures impossible to find elsewhere, or even the panoplies of lost heroes laid in barrows?
THE EAST
…is the desert of shining sand. Bright swathes of colored sand make variegated dunes, natural patterns which change with the wind. Sometimes, shifting sand reveals a flash of scales. The dunes can easily swallow a traveler up— right into a serpent’s coils. Only slightly less perilous are the sinuous cities that arise around stone hubs, their delicate spires and domes, their multi-colored glass towers and their steaming vents. Do not let the stereotypes of indolent, lascivious serpents fool you: they are industrious and clever, and their specialized goods can be found even on the moon herself, particularly their glasswork which fills with light. But do not stare deeply into their eyes, either.
THE SOUTH
...are the Shifting Jewels, humid and noisy and decadent. Here are cities built of wood and paper and silk, here are games that change fortunes, here are the shrines to Vesper and her Auntie, here are the rivers that change their courses daily, here are the festivals and the fireworks, here are the disappearances and the reappearances, here are the vests and the veils, here are the markets and the other markets crowded around stone hubs, here are the fishes and the curries, here are the cults and the gangs, here is ghost-fire on the waters and light trapped in bottles.
THE WEST
...is rolling plains, and herds roaming freely, and hide tents on the horizon, and wagons making their way down faint overgrown roads. It is pits of clay, and bones in tar, and hawks riding the winds. It is dense pine groves and snow blowing down off the mountains and the quaint towns of Old Foresters building stockades and watchtowers around stone hubs to keep out both the trees and the Serigalamu. It is being hoisted up onto a horse by a huntress and dressed in plundered Jewel finery. It is the hunt.
THE STONES
...were built by the First Fallen, who descended in order to nail the cosmos into shape, a sacrifice that no one pious ever forgets. They are thrust into the earth, carved with starsong, drinking deeply of light in order to keep the world whole. Walking from one to another turns a journey of days into an hour, but do not leave the path.
THE SPIRIT TABLETS
...are suspiciously similar to those Zelda tablets. There may have been cross-pollination of ideas, just like what happened with jazz, or with legends of a sleeping king.
THE FALLEN
...are potent, and dangerous, and limited, and criminals, and shapers of the world. The First Fallen is hidden somewhere in the mountains, masquerading as just another monk. The Fire in the Wood no longer has just one body. The Demon Queen rages inside yet another prison. The False Fire gluts herself on mischief and drama.
THE SWORDS
...are manifestations of the heart, as expressed through light. Fighting with them is the noble art, the dangerous art, the fight which ends in tears. They cut anything but flesh and that which is infused with light, and they sink into both, instead; they only hold against each other. A strike to the head will take your wakefulness, a strike to the heart will take your strength, a strike elsewhere will take your walls. Coincidentally, because one cannot remove an opponent from play permanently, a second noble art has sprung up alongside it, to secure victory and provide one a cute trophy.
…is a dome, and the wellspring of magic. The stars are faintly visible while the sun is illuminated, and move faster than stars back home; they all have names, like the Hawk, or the Rose, or the Drummer. The sun is a crystal globe illuminated from within, and the moon is connected to the earth by a delicate, spiraling silver road. The moon is home to the Lunarians, a high-magitech civilization with a penchant for astronaut-style armor and flying ships. They're the ones who make the spirit tablets.
THE CENTER
…is comprised of the Mountains of Kel, building up to the impossibly tall Moonhorn and the Lunar Causeway. The mountains are a labyrinth of fortresses, fastnesses, monasteries, mines, fortifications, and hidden passages. Aboveground, it is extremely windy, inhospitable, and difficult to find a way upwards that is not blocked by old walls or snowdrifts, despite the soaring bridges between mountains. Fortunately, most stone hubs have extensive infrastructure surrounding them. Here, light is captured in crystals; here, forbidding exteriors hide sumptuous interiors; here, the Kel facilitate trade between Thellamie and her moon, and keep anything that has fallen from rising again.
THE NORTH
…is full of trees. No, more than that. Thick, deep-rooted trees, drinking deeply of the light. They whisper, they stir, they grow walkers. It had a perilous reputation even before the Shadow of the Wood was buried here, but it was tempered with adventure and chivalry. Now only the forest remains, and the knights that emerge are made of dead wood walking. Here be monsters; emerging from a stone hub here will find you standing among ruins, or a barrow of roots, or suddenly tangled to the earth by weeds. And for what? Flowers glowing with inner light, cures impossible to find elsewhere, or even the panoplies of lost heroes laid in barrows?
THE EAST
…is the desert of shining sand. Bright swathes of colored sand make variegated dunes, natural patterns which change with the wind. Sometimes, shifting sand reveals a flash of scales. The dunes can easily swallow a traveler up— right into a serpent’s coils. Only slightly less perilous are the sinuous cities that arise around stone hubs, their delicate spires and domes, their multi-colored glass towers and their steaming vents. Do not let the stereotypes of indolent, lascivious serpents fool you: they are industrious and clever, and their specialized goods can be found even on the moon herself, particularly their glasswork which fills with light. But do not stare deeply into their eyes, either.
THE SOUTH
...are the Shifting Jewels, humid and noisy and decadent. Here are cities built of wood and paper and silk, here are games that change fortunes, here are the shrines to Vesper and her Auntie, here are the rivers that change their courses daily, here are the festivals and the fireworks, here are the disappearances and the reappearances, here are the vests and the veils, here are the markets and the other markets crowded around stone hubs, here are the fishes and the curries, here are the cults and the gangs, here is ghost-fire on the waters and light trapped in bottles.
THE WEST
...is rolling plains, and herds roaming freely, and hide tents on the horizon, and wagons making their way down faint overgrown roads. It is pits of clay, and bones in tar, and hawks riding the winds. It is dense pine groves and snow blowing down off the mountains and the quaint towns of Old Foresters building stockades and watchtowers around stone hubs to keep out both the trees and the Serigalamu. It is being hoisted up onto a horse by a huntress and dressed in plundered Jewel finery. It is the hunt.
THE STONES
...were built by the First Fallen, who descended in order to nail the cosmos into shape, a sacrifice that no one pious ever forgets. They are thrust into the earth, carved with starsong, drinking deeply of light in order to keep the world whole. Walking from one to another turns a journey of days into an hour, but do not leave the path.
THE SPIRIT TABLETS
...are suspiciously similar to those Zelda tablets. There may have been cross-pollination of ideas, just like what happened with jazz, or with legends of a sleeping king.
THE FALLEN
...are potent, and dangerous, and limited, and criminals, and shapers of the world. The First Fallen is hidden somewhere in the mountains, masquerading as just another monk. The Fire in the Wood no longer has just one body. The Demon Queen rages inside yet another prison. The False Fire gluts herself on mischief and drama.
THE SWORDS
...are manifestations of the heart, as expressed through light. Fighting with them is the noble art, the dangerous art, the fight which ends in tears. They cut anything but flesh and that which is infused with light, and they sink into both, instead; they only hold against each other. A strike to the head will take your wakefulness, a strike to the heart will take your strength, a strike elsewhere will take your walls. Coincidentally, because one cannot remove an opponent from play permanently, a second noble art has sprung up alongside it, to secure victory and provide one a cute trophy.