#later today bc I'm not working so I spent the morning uhhhhh hoovering and then. playing bg3. you know how it goes

[ace-malarky]

Mist Worlds; The Mist Itself

hello back at it again before I uhhh yeah I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of my day actually. Maybe finish reading that book

anyway

The Mist Itself.

It's extremely literal lmao, right from the beginning! The first short I wrote that I knew as the start of this whole Thing was the Magic Thieves sitting in the Mist waiting for a carriage to the next work and that was... 2012

damn ok yeah sure it's been a minute I guess

Some things have definitely changed shsjkss

So prior to the Arch Mages sealing the dragons and setting the gates in - not literal - stone, they could (and would) appear without warning anywhere. Dawn was generally the most common time for them, but anywhere mist tended to gather

Time was also wobbly in it! someone could walk from one world in one year and turn up somewhere else years into the future or past with no control over it (this happens to Skren and possibly the Nightgales but there were extenuating circumstances there)

As previously said, only the likes of dragons and fair folk could control their paths. They'd take people along for a price but the price may not uhhhh always have been worth it, y'know?

So for the most part, before the gates, no one really knows that there are other worlds. People don't really come back. The Fair Folk get blamed for a lot (or - not blamed, but generally don't tempt them you know?)

And then the Arch Mages pull their "Look at us creating travel for everyone" magic and everything gets a little more open and most of the dragons disappear from the worlds.

And outside of the stable gateways and the pathways between them, the Mist gets a little more dangerous; after all, there are dragons in there. The Mist might as well be their breath, and they've never been all that great with the mortal races

So travel gets easier and I deal in some handwavy magic because hello different worlds with technically different languages!! That shit's gonna overwrite whatever your language is to the main language in the area you arrive in (think TARDIS language circuits) but unless you put in the effort to like. learn it written or whatever, you're gonna forget it when you leave that world again. Not sure how that's interacting with people with multiple languages but hey. that's a problem for later.

And while magic things/charms/runes/etc can travel between worlds without being broken down, technology can't, so no one's about to introduce smartphones to a functionally medieval world - although Techno Mages can and have made workarounds (hello Asin, your circus tricks are very pretty but come on).

around the stabilised gates are built what is functionally a train station, because the ways might be safe but you still need a guide to get to the right destination! There is money/tickets involved, you do need some style of passport, but they're all... varyingly easy to come by?

And of course random gates still open and if you can bargain with the Fair, they'll take you through as well (or - hello, Vivian - make friends with a unicorn and go wherever in the Mist you want)

When the dragons are freed, everyone expects the gates to falter and fail, but they don't!

Skren might have had something to do with that :3 He can be very persuasive when he needs to be. Or maybe he's just so earnest that they felt he deserved something for freeing them, who knows. Skren isn't talking and Elise isn't too sure because her control was slipping at the time.

The most that noticeably happens is that the Mist gets a little less dangerous if one strays off the paths. You're still gonna get lost, you just might not die of it.

There is At Least One artefact that can create its own gateways in the Mist which is like the whole plot of the as-yet-unplotted World Music shenanigan, so like there might be more but that's gotta be stupid intricate magic to create so they're gonna be rare af

but yeah. Mist!

#world building #Mist Worlds #later today bc I'm not working so I spent the morning uhhhhh hoovering and then. playing bg3. you know how it goes #anyway yeah the mist itself #some of this is specifically because of the dnd campaign lmaooo #serves them right #(hey spro love you <3) #this feels shorter and it probably is bc well #man idk the mist is. not much to say. I guess? #this is what we have anyhow #oh I am tired. hm. maybe it is reading time and possibly a nap