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justanotherbirdbrain-blog · 3 months

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A Workshop for Creating Magical/ Fictional Crystals: A Guide from a Geologist

Hi folks, its me, here to talk about fictional writing again! Today I'm just tackling the idea of magical stones/mana stones by looking at existing minerals today and some neat properties that they have, and how you can apply these things to a fictional world. The goal is mainly to help you if you are stuck trying to come up with a unique magic system, or a unique identification/characteristic of your mineral.

First Things First: Mineral Shapes

I am exhausted, petered out, down-right fatigued by seeing every mineral depicted with having the crystal structure of calcite and quartz. There are soooooo many cooler, more interesting crystal structures, don't you think you would stop and take a look at a perfect cube in nature? It is completely unsettling.

Second: Color

Color within minerals can either be really important, or not important at all! It is your choice to decide if color is going to be something that means something to your mineral. But what are some times when the color is important? Well.... there are some elements that are called chromophores, this classification just indicates that these elements, when present, will determine the color of whatever they are in. So, if you wanted to treat mana like a chromophore, you could say, "Oh everything that contains mana turns green!" This could mean that regardless of the mineral, if that mineral is a specific color, it means it contains mana. This concept is exciting because you can just stop here and use minerals that already exist! You can also use it as an indicator for a magical ore! Chromophores are typically metals, so if you are making a new metal weapon, making the ore of that metal a unique color would make a lot of sense!

However, your mineral can also just be every color of the rainbow like quartz and perhaps that's what makes identifying your mana stones elusive and create an illusion of scarcity that your character can solve.

There are other things that can change the colors of minerals, like radiation damage, and electron exchange, but I think that is beyond what would be helpful! So lets talk about some unique color properties that happen in nature that seem magical in the first place! Maybe you don't need to design a mana stone, but you want a unique gemstone that only the royal family passes down or something (IDK).

The first one is the alexandrite effect! This is where a mineral can change color in natural light vs. incandescent light. (the mineral itself is not changing, but the lights contain different amounts of different colors that then get absorbed by the stone). Even if you don't use electricity in your fictional world, you could have the colors change in the presence of light magic. This could create fun misunderstandings about what the mineral is reacting to!

Pleochroism

Pleochroism is something that most minerals have, it is frequently used to help identify minerals in thin sections, however minerals are usually not pleochroic enough for it to be visible to the naked eye! Pleochroism is just a fancy name to describe the change in how light is absorbed based on the angle of the mineral! So if you scroll up to the first image where I showed a lot of crystal shapes, most of them have angles where they are longer and shorter! This will effect the way light travels in the crystal. Tanzanite is a popular mineral that does this.

Photochromism

This is when a mineral will change color (in a reversible way) when exposed to UV light (or sunlight), I am not going to go too into the details of why this is happening because it would require me to read some research papers and I just don't feel like it. The mineral that is best known for this is Hackmanite!

Alright! These are all the really cool color effects that might inspire you or maybe not, but now I am going to talk about how you might find your minerals within a rock!

When I see a lot of magical caves/mines, typically I see them with some variation of a geode honestly, but most minerals are not found like that! Now I am sure most of you guys have seen a geode, so I will not really talk about those, but I will talk briefly about porphyroblasts which is when the mineral grows larger than the minerals around it, this happens in metamorphic minerals!

sorry random stranger, but this is an image of garnets inside a finer-grained rock at gore mountain in New York!

Another way you might find minerals is in a pegmatite! This is when all minerals are really large! This is a formed from really slow crystalizing magma!

But something else to think about is that your mineral might just be massive, it doesn't have to have distinct crystals, it may be similar to jadeite where small grains grow together which leaves it looking smooth and seamless! A note about all of these is that you would have to mine into the rock to find these, there would not be any natural caves in these rocks! Caves are only ever really formed in limestones and maybe marbles (rocks that react with acid).

How can your characters identify these minerals?

Typically when you are out in the field you will look to see what type of rocks the minerals are found in (The overall texture of the rock will tell you how it formed). If you know how the rock formed, it will narrow down the amount of minerals you need to think about by quite a bit! Next, you are going to look closely at it and observe its crystal structure, does it have an obvious crystal? if so what is the general shape? If it is broken, how did it break? Did it fracture like glass or did it break along uniform planes. Some minerals have a thing called cleavage (breaks along planes of weakness). If a mineral exhibits this habit, it will again help narrow this down. Next we can look at color. Color can be misleading, because minerals like quartz can be any color imaginable, but minerals like olivine will always be green! The next thing your character can do is test for hardness, minerals all have a specific hardness that can help identify it as well.

After you go through all of this, your mineral might have some special property! This could be magnetism, fluorescence, reactions to acid, or any of the color changing effects I mentioned above! Other than that, your character can take it back to a lab and do a number of things to identify it, but the most typical thing would be for them to make a thin section (very thin piece of the rock) and observe it under a cross polarized microscope!

On that note folks! I hope this helped in some way in thinking of new magic mineral properties! I have other guides that explore some different fictional worldbuilding issues you might run into, but if you have any topics you would like me to cover please that I haven't mentioned already, let me know!

#geology #rocks #creative writing #fictional world #worldbuilding #dnd #dnd worldbuilding #worldbuilding stuff #writing resources #info post #information #writing

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the-cypress-grove · 6 months

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So, You Want To Write Vampires...

Here's a basic list of things to do/consider when approaching this creature.

Source Material

Go back to the origins. Almost every culture around the world has a story or myth containing cannibalism / blood drinking. You may want to base your origin story for vampires on one of these. This can also give you some ideas about what traits and abilities you might want to include that have been written out of modern fiction. It could help you add a unique twist.

2. Vampire Fiction

Vampires have been popping up in fiction for a very long time. Read The Vampyre by John Polidori (thought to be one of the first books written on vampires). Check out Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (the lesbian vampire story that came out before Dracula). Speaking of, Dracula is a classic.

Look at modern fiction. Vampire Academy, Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, A Dowery of Blood, Crave. Read the good and the bad. Learn what qualities you like and which you will not use.

Make a list of things you like and things you don't.

3. Themes

Writing vampires brings a lot of themes surrounding mortality, immortality, morality, and at what point do we draw the line between what is human and what is other. These themes are integral to a vampire story whether you're writing a gothic horror, a paranormal romance, or a YA. There are a lot of links between cannibalism / blood drinking and love, vampires and LGBTQIA+ characters / coding.

4.Pick your traits

Vampires tend to be unique to the writer. The vampires in Twilight work differently to the vampires in The Vampire Diaries to the vampires in Dracula.

By this point you should have a list of possible traits and abilities you might want to give your vampires. My advice: tailor it to your genre. If you're writing a horror go with the traditional vampire abilities, give them the things that scare you. Think Nosferatu. If you're writing romance, then you might want to soften the traditional vampire traits in the way you find frequently in modern vampire media.

What you choose is up to you.

5. Origins

This is often overlooked in vampire stories but how did your vampires come into being? Who was the first vampire? Is this vampire still alive? How far back do vampires go as a species?

This could affect your vampires in terms of relationships with others of their kind, their powers, their strength.

This might not impact on your plot but, in terms of worldbuilding, if you intend to turn your book into a series then this could be very important going forward.

6. Society

Unless you're writing about the first ever vampire you're probably going to be writing about an established vampire population who will have their own laws, their own history, their own leadership, their own customs. This is an important piece of worldbuilding. It will affect your characters relationships, add conflict to the plot, create established enemies and can be used to raise the stakes.

7. Nocturnal Life

If you're following a traditional burn-in-the-sun vampire and they haven't found a way around this then you need to determine the night life of your setting. What is there for your vampires to do at night?

8. Feeding, Hunting, and Bloodlust

This will affect the level of gore in your story as a lot of the bloody parts in your story will take place through feeding and hunting. This will also determine your vampire population.

You need to decide how much your vampires need to feed, how often they need to do so, and what they can feed on. Do they drink animal blood? Is that possible? Do they drink human blood? Can they drink from blood bags? Do they need the blood fresh? If they need human blood do they need all of it?

The less a vampire feeds, the larger a population you can have in one area as it attracts less attention.

What happens when your vampires are hungry? What does their bloodlust look like? How does it affect a vampire? Is the amount of bloodlust a vampire experiences determined by how old the vampire is?

9. Threats

Unless your vampires are well and truly endless there will be ways to kill them and they will have enemies. Do these enemies take the shape of humans, of other vampires, or another species entirely? How can your vampires be killed? What other species are out there?

#writeblr community #writing #creative writing #writeblr #story prompts #vampire prompts #thousand year old vampire #vampire #vampire writing #writing vampires #vampire writing prompts #worldbuilding questions #worldbuilding stuff #world building #worldbuilding

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troythecatfish · 6 months

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Here’s my personal recommendation of a YouTube video to check out:

youtube

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shy-raccoon · 3 months

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Worldbuilding Tip

If you have a fantasy race with animal traits look at that animals social structure when desiging their culture.

A kingdom of lion people could have 2 types of towns, one with mostly women and one man as mayor and another made up of men banished from the first town when they hit puberity. With duals to decide the mayor of the first town.

Fauns and satyrs could banish all men from town except for during mating season with only women running socity or have seperate towns for each gender like actual deer herds.

Most cultures in fantasy are real world cultures with the serial numbers shaved off or a mish mash of real world cultures. So this is a great way to make more interesting cultures in your setting.

#world building #worldbuilding #fantasy worldbuilding #worldbuilding stuff #worldbuilding ideas #writers on tumblr #writing #writeblr #writing inspiration #writing tips #writing advice #fantasy world #world building prompts #fantasy writing #world building wednesday

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the-likeable-wizard-mack · 11 months

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Modern Fantasy Monsters: Tips to Stay Cool For the Summer! ☀️

Make sure that your slime friends are getting enough liquid in there body! Some slimes can be sensitive to the hot weather so it is always important to have a drink for them around so they don’t dehydrated and shrink! A healthy slime during hot weather is one that’s well colorful and hydrated!

Though it’s not always needed, please go see a hairstylist if you are a werewolf. Over heating with a heavy coat is no fun and can be dangerous when running around the forest. So make sure you regulate your body temperature by not going out on hot days, taking care of your shedding coat (or just go to the hairstylist for a summer cut), or just staying inside in a werewolf safe home so that you can keep cool. Also please protect your paws! You don’t want them to get burnt on the sidewalk!

Keep fairy homes out of direct sunlight! If you have a fairy home in a tree or somewhere in your garden where small fairies visit make sure you safely move it to a place with shade so the fairies won’t be too hot in their home. A small offering of fresh fruits and iced drinks in thimbles and small paper cups are also helpful. You can even make them a little pool to cool off in using some small bowls!

Dragons should soak their scales whenever they feel that their scales are getting dry. This goes for non-humanoid dragons and Dragonkin alike. If you know a dragon that rest in your area, politely ask them if they need help with their scales being soaked. Most dragons will happily agree for you to help them get cool during the summer.

Vampires be extra careful during the summer. The sun is no joke and it’s been to maybe ask your employer (if you work) to take some days off during the summer so you can stay inside as long as possible. Even in bat form it is possible for you to burn in the sun. Cover yourself when you go outside from head to toe and put on some vampire safe sunscreen if you want that extra layer of protection.

Witches please remember to put on sunscreen whenever you go out flying on your broomstick. Even if you have a hat on a little sunscreen on the back of the neck, face, arms and legs can help to avoid sunburning. Also please wear proper eye protection when flying with the bright sun. The sun may blind you if you get too close, wear broom riding glasses or sun glasses so that you can see properly.

Elves please don’t forget to protect your ears from the sun as well. A nice lather of sunscreen on your ears can protect them from sun damage.

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 months

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His Word Goes Forth

CW: Referenced past child abuse, some emeto references (brief, vague), some dissoci@tion towards the end, alcohol references, prostitution references. Just a whole load of references. But I am so excited to finally be able to write this chapter and introduce... Gilly's children.

Bones in the Ocean Masterlist

The Hotel Import, Grand Island, the Colonies

Guilford Wentworth the Fifth - who went by Ford and told everyone who didn’t already know his parentage that his name was Wilford Prose, simply a cousin to the illustrious Wentworth name - woke up to sunlight streaming in through the gauzy curtains, bright like daggers against his closed eyes.

He’d been meant to go to the symphony last night and make some sort of connection with a man whose properties his father admired, a man named Hogarth or something who owned too much land and not enough good common sense to know to avoid anything to do with the Wentworth businesses. Ford had been told to convince him a visit to the Continent would do him good, to stop by the Wentworth estate and meet the elder Guilford.

He’d been told to make many such meetings before, and usually he did as he was told. Ford had ceased to be treated as a child and had become just another tool in his father’s toolbox since his mother died and could no longer shield her children. He’d been good at it at first.

But now… He was only eighteen and already he was tired of this.

And last night, he’d decided to let tired win the day.

Instead of making contact at the symphony, he’d instead allowed himself to be distracted by the promise of further liquor in a dark men’s club down the street, and spent his night in pursuit of new ways to forget his hated name.

He had succeeded, however briefly.

Unfortunately, the end result was that Ford woke up knowing his own name very well still, but with a headache that threatened to split him in two from temple to chin, a tongue that felt like cotton stuffed into his mouth, and a stomach that was either threatening to empty itself or ravenous for food and it couldn’t seem to decide which.

“Damn the sun,” He groaned, still feeling the ebb and swell of the liquor from the night before within him, stretching against the sheets. There was an ache in his hips that he enjoyed more than he disliked it, and when he tried to open one eye to look down at himself, there were marks of red from someone’s rouge, he thought, along the insides of his thighs. “... huh.”

Rubbing his face, he slowly sat up, squinting against the pain. There was a bottle with at least two good drinks left in it on the table next to the bed, and he drank it all, feeling it burn all the way down.It would help hold off the worst of the ache, though, at least until he could find somewhere darker to hide away from the daylight and a draught of laudanum to send him back to sleep.

Then, when he woke up once more, he’d need to come up with an excuse for why Hogarth Whoever wasn’t already boarding a ship for the Continent, to be swayed by his father’s monster like everyone else was.

That could wait, though. At least for however long it took to sleep off last night, both the alcohol and the pleasures that came with the darker bars and the seedier places in the city. Ocean air and warm nights made pleasures easy to find, and there were plenty of people who wanted money to eat more than they wanted their own virtue intact.

Ford had plenty of money.

Although even the money wasn’t really his.

He sighed, dropping back into the bed. There wasn’t anyone in the bed, although there had been when he went to sleep. Or passed out. Whichever it was that he’d done.

There’d been a young man, his own age - what was his name? It didn’t matter. None of their names mattered. Once they had coins in hand he could call them anything he wanted and they’d do anything they were told. Nothing there beside him now but empty space.

When he laid his hand there, it was still warm.

“Damn,” He whispered, then checked the other side, where there had been a lovely woman. Had the two known each other? He couldn’t remember. Well, in any case, that space was equally emptied, and it wasn’t warm at all.

She’d left long before the man had.

“Well… double damn,” Ford said, voice a little rasping. One of his last clear memories had been shout-singing along with the sea shanties sung by the sailors come on shore to drink and whore with the rest. Had the young man been a sailor on leave? Might have been... “If he told me his name, I forgot it. I rather liked them.”

His eyes drifted closed again.

“Of course you did,” His sister’s voice came, warm as the ocean nearest the shore, dry as the desert wind, breaking through his thoughts. “You like them all, because you are an idiot with money and that makes them like you.”

Ford gasped, his heart half-stopped before his mind caught up and he realized she wasn’t actually in the bedroom, but out in the sitting area where he couldn’t see her - and more importantly, she couldn’t see him. Even so, he felt himself flush and yanked the blankets up to cover himself, sitting upright all at once.

“Nathalie! What in the gods’ names-”

He heard the rustle of the morning paper. “Good morning,” Nathalie said, without even the slightest change in tone. “How are you, dear beloved sister? Oh, I’m fine, Ford, thank you for asking. Did you just arrive, Natty? Why yes, Ford, I did, it is so lovely of you to ask after my health-”

“Fine, fine, Nathalie, I get it. Just-... hold on, let me dress and I’ll join you.” Ford snorted, reaching blindly towards the floor and grabbing at the first pieces of clothing he found there. The suit he’d been meant to wear to the symphony, now a wrinkled mess - but it wasn’t like his sister would care, or even as if it were the first time she’d seen him in disarray after a night wasted. He had to fight a swell of dizzy nausea as soon as he was on his feet, leaning against the wall and letting his fingers scrape the textured wallpaper there, a series of flowers in dim pastels against cream. “How did you get in here, anyway?”

“I asked at the desk if my brother was here carousing with whores,” Nathalie said. The paper rustled again as she turned the page, as if punctuating her sentence. “And the sweet young man at the desk informed me that you were, indeed, carousing with whores. I paid him to let me in and threw out the whore.”

Ford swallowed thickly, walking with slow, careful steps along the cool wooden floor to the doorway, his shirt half-buttoned and the linen a mess of wrinkles. “There were two.”

“Of course there were.” Nathalie set the paper down and turned to look at him. She looked like their mother - both Ford and Nathalie looked like her, thank any god who might have been responsible. They had her delicacy, her bright wide eyes. Nathalie looked the most like her, though. And now she turned their mother’s look of solemn, disappointed judgment on him just like she had. “There was only one when I arrived. I sent him away.”

“Hmph. I thought he was quite nice, I was hoping to seek him out again. I can’t recall if he told me his name, though.” He dropped into a chair at the little breakfast table she’d set herself up at, slumping against the hard wooden back and tipping his head back. The world swayed dangerously around him when he did.

“His name was Darren,” Nathalie said, and when he opened his eyes to look at her, he found that the disappointment had become the slightest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Darren Meander.”

“That… He cannot have been speaking true to you.”

“I don’t care if he was or wasn’t, it’s what he told me. There, now you have a name if you want to find him again.”

“Thank you. Why did you bother?”

“You get on better with the whores than you do with your own class,” Nathalie said, as if the answer were obvious. “And you’re going to seek them out anyway. Besides, I use you as proof positive to myself of something I have always known.”

“What…?”

“That I, Lady Nathalie Wentworth, shall never marry, since any man of means or with a good family name may be as dissolute and pointless as you are.” She winked at him, and he might even have found it in himself to laugh if his stomach hadn’t twisted angrily at the thought. “I do enough picking up after you, I don’t think I am in need of any other man to deal with.”

“I’m sure you can find a pious man and get to him before he joins the priesthood,” Ford muttered, his face hot with guilt. She really did so often have to handle things for him, things he should have handled himself as the eldest.

Nathalie was younger than him, only just now sixteen, but she’d always seemed older, more second mother than sister some days. Maybe because, since their mother had died - when he was eleven and she was only nine - she’d done all the mothering of the twins, all the hiding them from the attention of their father, holding them in the night after nightmares or when the coastal storms raged.

Ford’s job, back then, had been to take the brunt of his father’s anger, keep Guilford’s eyes - and his fists - on him, and only him. It had kept Nathalie and the twins safe, for years… until their lordly father had split them all apart and declared the twins were old enough for finishing school, Ford was ready to take over the business interests in the Colonies, and Nathalie was old enough to run her own household and prepare for marriage.

Still.

They were all still far, far away from their father, and therefore safe from his direct influence, his attention, and his damnable monster.

Still.

Ford sighed, watching a shivery little rainbow from the sun shining through a window just right bounce off the ceiling. “In any case, I’ve hardly caused enough trouble to cross the channel and find you. What are you doing here, anyway?”

Nathalie didn’t look up from the paper she was scanning, but she gestured at a carafe before her. It had freshly-brewed coffee that steamed as he poured it into a teacup, and he sighed happily at the first sip. She hummed. “I came to see you.”

“You’re meant to be up at Howe House.”

“I was up at Howe House. I’ve been supervising it for months. It’s nearly habitable, which is lovely, considering I’ve been habiting there amongst the dust and the mouse droppings all this time.” Nathalie finally set the paper down, crossing her arms on the table and looking Ford over. She was pristine, in a light-blue linen dress made for the hot island days, her hair pulled back in a chignon to keep it from suffocating the back of her neck. “Oh, Ford. You look awful.”

“I feel awful, thank you ever so much for noticing.” He drained the first cup of coffee and poured a second, his tongue flat and numb from the too-hot liquid. He didn’t care. “So if you were at Howe House, why aren’t you there now? It’s a four-day sail to get here from there, and you sent no warning-”

“I absolutely did send you a notice, you shattered teapot of a man. You just haven’t been home in a week, I checked when I arrived. Your servants haven’t seen you since last Wednesday and not a single one had a clue where to find you except your butler.”

“Yes, well, he’s the only one I told when I left that I was going to stay here.” Ford exhaled. His sister’s constant piercing stare wasn’t helping his headache even a little bit. His stomach turned over itself and he fought back the urge to simply be sick all over this lovely table and Nathalie’s lovely dress. “... I hate the house. I avoid it whenever I can.”

“Clearly.” Something in his sister’s bristling manner softened, a little. She reached out to lay a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Ford. I know this… wasn’t how we hoped it would be, when we were young.”

Ford laid a hand over hers. His fingers felt chilled and numb - hers, by contrast, felt bright and warm and full of life. “We thought we could go farther from him, that he wouldn’t follow us. But…”

That had been when their mother was alive, and they had thought they could bring her with. Neither of them said it. Both of them heard it, anyway, even unsaid.

Ford cleared his throat. “... but if this is what our father wants, we must help to build and maintain the Wentworth name and fortune.”

“I know.” She squeezed his arm, brief but firm, and then let go of him, glancing back down at the paper. “I know. And we are, however we hate our parts, we play them. For the twins, at least.”

“For the twins. They’ll… be out of school in a few years, and by then, maybe-”

“Maybe.” She cut him off. She poured herself a coffee, then, holding it in both hands. Her nails were bitten nearly to the quick, the one bad habit that had never been broken in her no matter their father’s rages. “I should tell you, Ford, this is not a social visit. I was… sent here to pick you up.”

“You were?” Ford sat up straighter, and felt a frisson of dread like an electric eel moving inside of him. “By-... Nathalie, not by-”

“Yes. By… our father.”

He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “... why?”

She took in a breath, wincing and pressing one hand to her side as the mere expansion of her ribs pushed against the tightly-fitted bodice. The style of the times, for wealthy young women, and Ford had spent more than a few nights undoing laces of young ladies wondering if ‘style’ was just a pretty way to avoid saying suffocation. At least the lower class women he spent most of his time with were allowed to breathe.

Nathalie’s voice was so soft it was nearly a whisper. “You were supposed to be packed and ready to go when I arrived, Ford. I was supposed to explain it to you on the ship.”

“... what?” He blinked.

"Father's letter to me made it clear I wasn't to tell you until we were underway, but-... but I meant to regardless, just-... I expected you to have seen my letter."

"... Ah." The mere mention of his father had made his stomach try to rise up in his throat again, and the idea of going back on a ship - the weeks of seasickness and then the week of land sickness afterward when he had to get used to being solid and still once again - made it much much worse. He had to swallow hard as bile rose and lean over, resting his forehead on the cool surface of the table and pressing one hand over his belly to try and calm it with the pressure.

The morning breeze blew in through the windows, bringing the salt-scent of ocean air with it. There came with the welcome salt the faint hint of dead fish, a simple fact of life everyone tried to ignore. You got used to it. Ford had gotten used to it, in the end. But it didn’t help his stomach feel any better now, or stop his heart from racing. “Father sent you... to pick me up? I am to live at Howe House with you now?” He groaned against the tabletop without looking up. “That house is full of ghosts!”

“It is not.” Nathalie rolled her eyes. He could hear her shoe tapping impatiently under the table and her cup clatter against the saucer as she put it back down. “That’s an old wives’ tale, I’ve never met a single one and I’ve been living there for more than a year.”

“Yeah, because you aren’t the heir, they don’t loathe you like they do me.”

“There are no spirits haunting Howe House,” Nathalie said firmly. “And if there were, why would they hate you?”

“The same reason I have such hatred for myself, due to the blood in my veins! His blood!"

Oh, he’d spoken too loud. The pain in his head spiked with his voice's volume, and he had to close his eyes tightly and breathe in quick, shallow pants until it ebbed again.

Nathalie was silent, but her hand laid on his back, then, rubbing gently up and down. Just like their mother had, when they were young and came to her with sickness. She gave him a moment or two of quiet, which... it helped, honestly. “You cannot help the circumstances of your birth,” She murmured. “And remember what Mother said."

"It is only blood," Ford muttered, mouth barely moving. "She had no idea how deep the ties of blood run."

"Yes she did. And... I understand, Ford, I wish as much as you that we could change our names and be gone, but you know we can’t."

"The twins need us."

"Yes. Besides, Father-”

“Why, why would Father even think of me? I’ve done everything I can to get him to forget me entirely, Nathalie!”

“Oh, is that what the drinking and whoring were about? Being easily forgotten?” Nathalie’s humor was sharp, but it never quite cut deep. He knew her too well for that, and she was still gentling herself for his sake. He made himself sit up and look over at her. There was something in the set of her face that had his nerves singing in worry. “Listen to me, Ford. You aren’t coming to stay at Howe House.”

“Well, he can’t have sent you to scold me about… this.” He gestured at the wreckage of the hotel suite around him, bottles emptied or half-emptied. It looked as though at least one of his guests the night before had left their shirt behind. Or maybe that was one of his, and it had been unpacked… He’d never seen it before, but that didn’t mean much. Ford’s clothing was bought according to his father’s specifications, he never knew of it until he was sent for tailoring. “He doesn’t even know about it.”

“You cannot be sure, but… no, no, it’s not about this.” She licked at her lips, looking uneasily over to the window. Outside, the sun shone in a perfect, cloudless blue sky. The sound of people going about their lives down there filtered up to them. “... Ford. He calls us. We have been summoned... home.”

His heart chilled at the word. "No."

"Yes." Nathalie exhaled, folding her hands in front of her. She looked everywhere but him, and he tried without success to follow her gaze. “He’s… sent for us, Ford. You know why. You know what that means.”

“Either of us, really.” His voice was a whisper, airless. The hotel suite around him seemed suddenly transparent, as if he weren’t even seated here within it. As if it were all a pretty fiction, a daydream he had at night with Wentworth Manor crowding ever closer, his father’s eyes everywhere searching for faults, always finding them. His father’s monster with teeth bared and loathing in its dreadful eyes. “It could be for either of us. You’re sixteen, I’m eighteen, it could-... it could be for you, or for me, it could be-”

“... I think it’s for you.” She took his hand in both of hers again, and this time she held on tight. They looked at each other, with their mother’s eyes, and Ford felt the wave of fear he had spent his time here on the islands trying to escape breaking over his head, to drag him under again. “I think Father has found you a wife.”

The sun shone. Birds sang. The ocean was a constant dull, reassuring roar just outside the window. Despite the heat, Ford shivered with a depthless chill and felt water closing over his head, drowning him in the dark with all his fears coming suddenly to life.

“How-” His voice broke.

He had to swallow down terror, just like he had done since he was a child, and straighten his shoulders. He had to tell himself the world was only a play, and he was only a part his father had imperfectly cast. He had to keep his own life at a distance, and not feel it, or he would feel too much. The world had too many sharp edges, and he must stand apart from them or be slashed to ribbons. “Nathalie-”

“Please,” Nathalie whispered. “Please don’t ask, Ford. Don't, I won't know the answer, none of us know."

“How long?”

She didn’t answer, only looked away. He could see the glimmer in her eyes, knew it for what it was. It made the world feel even more distance, as if he were adrift in a lifeboat, the tide carrying him away from his own body. The escape was a gift or a curse, and he didn't know which.

His mouth still moved, without his consent. Without his decree. It asked the question neither of them knew the answer to, the question that haunted every Guilford Wentworth but the first.

“After I’m married, Nathalie... after he has given me to his bride, and the monster has taken my mind and will from me... after he has me shut up in his house again..."

His voice felt like someone else's. His body was only a creation that carried blood to a new generation, to give his father more power. He was far, far away from it.

"Nathalie-"

"Please, Ford-"

"How long will he... let me live?”

Taglist: @grizzlie70 @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @theelvishcowgirl @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @bloodinkandashes @squishablesunbeam @mj-or-say10 @apokolyps @wildfaewhump @shrimpwritings @there-will-always-be-blood @latenightcupsofcoffee

#bones in the ocean #child of whumper #worldbuilding stuff #fantasy whump #fantasy writing #original fantasy writing #original fantasy #writers on tumblr #writblr #original fiction #referenced captivity #dissoci@tion tw #referenced child abuse #whumpers who are also whumpees

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artherzenswarme · 5 months

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Example of sexual dimorphism in Castor Erectus. Individual females can vary greatly in hairiness, though in general they tend to have less and thinner facial hair than male individuals. In colder climates where more insulating fur is necessary, Dwarven females can often become indistinguishable from male specimens in terms of hairiness. Male Dwarves have an average height of about 135cm, or 4'5", and healthy specimens vary in height by about 10cm, or 4 inches. An average female Dwarf stands at about 122cm, or 4 feet, with a similar range of variation. The female's smaller size can be attributed to directing energy that could be used on growth to maintaining a healthy menstrual and reproductive cycle. Dwarves are mostly Herbivorous, (Though some communities of dwarves have been seen supplementing their diet with Crustaceans and small fish, often farmed in their constructed cisterns.) and as such they do not have a rigid distinction between gender roles. Both male and female Dwarves engage in food gathering, den maintenance, defending from predators, and caring for young. Dwarves are generally monogamous, and live in close familial units called "colonies". but as their territory expands, multiple offshoots from the same familial source often band together and form a larger colonies, working together to control the flow of water and resources in their territory. These large colonies generally form in response to pressure from predators, environmental changes, or pressure from competing colonies.

#spec bio #speculative biology #speculative evolution #dwarves #anatomy #speculative zoology #specevo #spec evo #specbio #spec zoo #creature design #creature sketch #creature concept #speculative anatomy #dwarf #worldbuilding stuff #worldbuilding project #worldbuilding #creature illustration

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runner-owen · 3 months

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Currently working on the government in Runner Owen. Here's what I'm thinking so far.

There are three parliaments: the Parliament of Heirs, the Parliament of Peoples, and the Parliament of Ancestors.

The Parliament of Heirs is a hereditary position, filled by the Kings (leaders) of the various noble houses. (I may change King to a different title, but it makes sense as I'll explain later.)

The Parliament of Peoples is an elected position, voted in by various members of the middle class. I'm not sure what their title is.

The Parliament of Ancestors is a "parliament" allegedly containing the souls of those who fought the vampires under the banner and guidance of the Goddess. It's commonly believed to be a front for the clergy.

The three parliaments come together to elect a High Royal after the death of the previous. The Parliament of Ancestors has the final say. Only once has this parliament disagreed with the choices of the living, and it led to a civil war.

#runner owen series #writeblr #dark fantasy #writeblr community #worldbuilding stuff #worldbuilding

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ouroboros-hideout · 2 days

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WIP WHENEVER

@chevvy-yates tagged me on this. Thank you a lot! 💚

This week I have some art WIPs and some additions to the OC lore from last time.

ART

I tried to flesh out my SovOil Secret Police Agent (this is the third attempt *cry*) It´s not much difference between all WIPs but I feel comfy with that one. It´s still a lot of work (bc I love/hate details). And it will be a pain in the A to make him "real" once I get my PC. But I really want to take some pics with him and Aon. Some...angsty pics.

And he has a name now as you can see. Worked on his lore aswell, but it´s not incredible dense, since his role in my fic and the diary project I want to do is really focused on his present actions, rather than his past.

Vlad worked for the KGB before turning into the private sector to work for a corporation. He has a reputation for being a really cold-hearted person, precise, unyielding and always reliable. He is an incredibly good profiler and can read most people like an open book. I can imagine that he has also acquired a certain status in society as a "bogeyman". A man people tell their children scary stories about and threaten that he will come for them if they don't behave. I also gave him the nickname "Firebird" (simply because I like silly nicknames and they always add something "mythical" to a character). The reason why he is so heavily chromed is that he has been declared dead three times in the course of his life due to possible incidents, but he has always been brought back to life. His former colleagues eventually gave him this nickname because he always rises from the ashes like a phoenix. He himself always claims that he finds the name incredibly cringy, but he's a huge peacock, so it's all just false modesty and he loves to be feared and revered at the same time.

And I started a little thing with @blackrevell ´s beautiful Birdie Alt.

Really like this form of portrait. Like the actual character and some fitting details around. Would like to do a little series like this with other OCs in the future (maybe. not sure. future brain will decide what we do).

That´s it for this week. Tagging some ppl like always no pressure no nothing - only if you feel like it!

@barghestapologist @theviridianbunny @olath124 @therealnightcity

@streetkid-named-desire @blackrevell

#wip whenever #art stuff #oc stuff #worldbuilding stuff #oc: firebird #altiera volante #cyberpunk 2077

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thecrazyworldbuilder · 1 month

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Some miscellaneous worldbuilding brainrambles I had.

Saw some art from the Rainworld universe and it got me wondering - what if like, some Shoggoth level eldritch being, all tentacles and stuff, found humans freaking adorable. Like "OMGGGGG HONEEYYY COME LOOK AT THISSSSS" while reaching a slimy appendage to pet Mark the Cashier at the Gas Station on the head as he's frozen in fear.

What if dragons are always angry because they feel the pain of constantly growing. The older the dragon, the bigger they are. The growth rate stays the same their whole life, from egg to titan, which means their bones just ache all the time, every joint, their teeth fall out and regrow constantly like those of sharks. Imagine being stuck in puberty forever. What if gold presence eases their pains?

I like the take on prophecies where they aren't a script to follow but a ticket with restricted permissions. It's not that "the one who takes the sword from the stone will be king" but "anyone who takes the sword from the stone will be king", if they want to. It all boils down to roles in a prophecy and the amount of specification. The less specific, the less significant the prophecy. Any black-haired man can pull help a farmer to pull a donkey out of a pit, but the seventh son of a seventh son, born under an eclipsed sun surrounded by fire? That's some world-changing potential prophecy there.

"Perfection... For thousands of years we tried to achieve perfection without really understanding what it is. We might be incapable to achieve it, but we can make something that will achieve it for us. First were the automaton who were designing each other by being a couple generations where the youngest disassemble the oldest to create a new wave. Who analyze themselves for weaknesses and think like a true hivemind. Then there were the chimerae. Beings of two bloodlines, noble and drone, like ants they lived in colonies yet each member was so drastically different from others you couldn't tell they are the same species. Splicing genes of all animals in the world, all fishes, all insects and even plants. With their own queens, princes and princesses who are the closest to the Perfection. And what else? Others not so lucky, drones, experiments out of which survive only the strongest, and who can challenge the noble bloodlines. If they live they get to reproduce. Die - and become genetic food for the nobles to grow stronger. Everytime we tried to pump animals with the Evolution agents, they turned into crabs. No damn idea why. And everytime we tried to use magic for the idea, slime were created in one way or another, slime that changes state of matter between liquid and solid, quicksilvers who simply outskill everything alive in survival, shapeshifting into cogs of a grand machine they are now building. We never knew what perfection was, yet tried to achieve it nevertheless."

Thinking of those scenes in movies when something paranormal is happening and things start to float upwards, or like, completely switch gravity directions. Say, a pendant starts dangling upwards rather than down, water flowing uphill, and all that. One possible way could be to say that there is a gravity anomaly affecting items below certain weight. If such anomaly could be harnessed in mechanisms, it be so dope. You know the ancient Greek Hero's automaton? Imagine the complexity if you include opposite gravity in that equation.

Could be a spell, could be some superconductor stuff like on Pandora.

Skin tones of a metal-based species.

Takes on elven youth:

Baby-looking elves. Elves just always looking like they are about seventeen, looking like that type of youngster you'd see in a supermarket asking for some random ass beer and looking too young to be allowed alcohol. Elves looking not in this "etereal beauty" kind like the "stock photos model" Looking young, yes, but. Not. Like those celebrities and richmen who spend a fortune on looking like they are forever 20. The only part of an elf that ages is the hair, turning white with age.

Runes are channels of energy, imperfections in metals, veins in your body, cracks and ores in stone, smallest anomalies in the crystals. Runes could be smithed, yes, but naturally occurring ones are stronger, better. Greater. So making a sword out of a metal chunk with a potent rune in it while preserving the rune itself yields greater results than trying to fabricate it.

Anatomic: Brain in the chest, heart in the head.

Concept:

The summoning sigils for demons (and other beings for that matter) are like calling a person's name and the only reason the demon shows up is because they grow tired and annoyed of being called like that so they are ready to do anything to stop that shit.

Imagine someone repeating your name a dozen times without elaborating what they want. Of course you will come over and ask "WHAT?"

Oooh I just got an interesting idea.

So, like, a language/culture where people's names are secondary, going after the pronoun they use.

It's like. He-John, She-Harrada, Ey-Nullée, et cetera.

But then that pronoun part is used as a third-person signifier. He, she, ey, all that, while the name is the second person pronoun (which it is in some cases). But then the part comes about verbs/adjectives getting those "genders" applied to them, as well as nouns (like "she-wolf" but, for example, "xe-smith apprentice").

There's this conversation I had with myself (typical neurodivergent queer going insane from having no reliable friends in a homophobic country that doesn't believe ADHD can exist in adults) about inflating a whole setting out of a minor detail, a smallest thing.

First it's one concept, then there's two, until the whole thing snowballs into a huge fictional world with lots of lore and stuff.

Say, concept: "Undead gods". Already amazing - sets up the assumption that A) Gods were once resurrected and B) Gods were once dead. Say if this happened to the Greek mythology, Hades - the god of the dead (but not death) himself dies and there's nobody to tend for the dead, and the Gods fight each other over the responsibility of tending over the most shitty job in the pantheon, resulting in mass bloodshed and death. Gods are dead, and only Thanatos is here to collect their souls. So he devises a plan, with ulterior motives: To give them and many dead a second chance in life. So in undeath, he lets them live as revenants, ghosts, skeletons, zombies, all devoted to different undead gods.

Undead being zapped with lightning from the blessing of Zeus. Undead breathing like a living forge of fire, blessed by Hephaestus. Chaos-bringing warriors in armor, followers of Ares. So much more.

And all from a simple ass concept, two words: Undead gods. Just that I am sometimes amazed how people who get into worldbuilding think that you must have a grand idea, a lot of things to connect together when in reality, it's just one stone, then two, then three, all together forming the building of your world(build). .

Or another, even smaller concept - "Alexandrithium is a metal that boils water on touch".

What tech will it inspire? What usage, how will it revolutionize the world? Boiling turns into steam, steam is punk (ba dum tsss). Some freaks make weapons out of this metal to cause Extra Suffering and the equivalent of the Geneva convention bans such weapons, may they be blades or bullets.

You can make an analogy of a snow ball, rolling down a mountain and sticking more and more snow to itself, or you can say that you have a balloon - the original first concept - that you inflate with ideas from within, filling in the bag, stuffing it up with all that other stuff while under the hood of the First Concept. Like.

Worldbuilding is neat.

I had a similar idea which could be called "procedural conlangs" (proclangs?)

In all technicality it is just a relex with words assigned via some algorithm, say, there's 3000 possible syllables that could be generated through some given algorithm, and to these 3000 syllables we assign the 3000 of the most frequent English words. Afterwards we can either continue assigning words their relex variants via randomly combining the 3000 syllables into bisyllabic words, or could try and piece together new translations for them.

E.g. the word for "toaster" isn't in the 3000, so we either use a random bisyllabic word without connected meaning, "ab-resh" (which would literally mean "bone-green"), or try to piece it together from the syllables already present in the 3000, like "thran-mil" (meaning something like "bread grill").

Sooo Hm.

My idea for "oriental elvish" was to base it on Japanese (the modern dialects at least) with the phonetic mutations and stuff (like "hu" being pronounced as "fu" and et.c.) But with added sounds like the English eth and thorn, + the /l/, and allowing three codas - /n, r, l/ thus (with a possible mutation coda /m/ when /n/ is before a bilabial stop).

Then once I have it I will reverse-engineer the protolang based on Chinese with added in tones and stuff, probably, and a more strict collection of phonotactic rules. And from all that a third possible dialect could be made, based on Korean.

Also sounds like me before I invented cryptolangs and thus a new brainworm that'd gnaw on my gray matter til' this very date.

Just naming stuff what sounds I fit best.

I didn't knew English that well back then, so like. One of the cities in a setting of mine was called "Meth". (I renamed it since, making it "Mett" - meant to be derived from "meeting", since the port city is one of the largest and richest, where many cultures and races meet, indeed.)

A way to count to 625 on fingers:Thumb is the index pointer in this case. Each finger is separated into phalanx and joints - 6 units per finger thus - plus the middle of the palm for one extra. Thus, on one hand you can count to 25. Now, once you count to 25, you count one unit on the other hand. Basically, an abacus of sorts.

#worldbuilding #fantasy worldbuilding #worldbuilding ideas #world creation #worldbuilder #worldbuilding tips #worldbuilding stuff

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caffeinated-frog · 5 months

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I did an overhaul for my conlang and made a new alphabet

I’ll likely make a better chart later

#conlang #worldbuilding stuff #worldbuilding #fantasy #fantasy worldbuilding #constructed language #language development #eurath #keskilet

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justanotherbirdbrain-blog · 4 months

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Geology of Natural Disasters and How to write them into your fictional universe.

So, you want to write about a natural disaster to advance your plot and torture your players/characters even more? Let me tell you how, accurately.

I feel like unless it is a volcano, natural disasters are a pretty slept on plot drivers, and some of them are really cool and unique! Today, I will talk to you about land slides, earthquakes (And earthquake related disasters), and volcanoes.

Landslides: Probably one I see the least in stories, but one that would be incredibly interesting to write into a plot where they believe in curses. Landslides can happen along ocean bluffs, slightly hilly areas, and highly mountainous areas, this means it is something that can happen in most landscapes. But what can trigger a landslide? Mostly all you need to trigger a landslide could be just abnormally large amounts of rain, excessive deforestation (with a little bit of rain), or an earthquake. If you don't want to use deforestation or an earthquake as a catalyst, a really cool indicator that the land is slipping and may be prone to a collapse is J hooked trees.

This indicates that there is soil creeping slowly over time, and it may lead to a major landslide.

2. Earthquakes: Probably one of the easiest things to write, earthquakes can happen anywhere, but they are most common in places that are tectonically active areas. There are about three types of environments you can expect earthquakes to be common. The first is just rugged mountains, if your landscape looks like this, you should write in earthquakes. Associated hazards could be landslides, avalanches, and large falling rocks.

The next landscape could be a thin mountain range, next to the ocean, very scenic, but very dangerous. Essentially, I am describing a subduction zone environment.

Earthquakes in these areas could equal a couple different associated disasters. Scenario one: A very large earthquake happens, and the ocean begins to recede. This is a tsunami, enough said. If you are writing a tsunami though, please, please, do not write it as a large wave, thank you. Also, a common way people are hurt by tsunami's are from them going into the ocean because they don't understand a tsunami is going to happen.

Scenario two: A large earthquake happens, your characters are in a valley and suddenly the ground begins to liquify as the ground shakes, once the shaking stops, the ground becomes solid like nothing ever happened, except everything has suddenly sunk into the now hard ground. This is called liquefaction and it typically happens in areas that have loose dirt or lots of saturated soil.

Scenario three: There are a lot of small earthquakes, they do not cause a lot of damage, but you begin to notice that one of the isolated mountains has a plume rising. Earthquakes can indicate lava moving underground and the filling of magma chambers.

The next environment that can host lots of earthquakes would be regions that have a lot of really deep valleys and small mountain ranges (not cone volcanoes), but overall seems pretty flat.

This indicates a transform fault like the San Andreas. If you want to hint at there being earthquakes in the area, you can show fence posts that are suddenly several feet out of line at a dilapidated farm or something similar.

(These earthquakes are different because they are cased from sideways movement, not an up-and-down movement this hint can only be used for this environment). Volcanoes would not be found here, but liquefaction and landslides could still occur here.

4. Volcanoes: If you thought earthquakes had a lot of information, volcanoes do too. First you have to ask yourself, what kind of volcano you want to have, what kind of eruption style? So lets break down the kind of eruptions you can have and what their landscapes look like. Hawaiian Shield volcano: This will produce a smooth fast lava, the landscape typically is pretty flat, but there will be small cones and the rocks can have a ropey or jagged texture and the rocks will be almost exclusively black to dark red.

Stratovolcanoes: These will be solitary mountains, typically, that look like perfect cones (Picture shown in earthquake section). These will have large ash cloud eruptions and pyroclastic flows, they may have some lava, but typically most damage is done from the pyroclastic flows (think Pompeii). Some hints of these, other than describing the cone features (which can be hidden by other mountains), would be to talk about petrified wood! Trees can get fossilized in the ash and I imagine it would be very strange to find this rock that clearly looks to be a piece of wood, but its a rock. Subcategory- Calderas: Used to be a large stratovolcano, but they erupt so explosively that the entire cone collapses and creates a basin.

There are a lot of kinds of volcanoes out there, so forgive me for just putting an infographic and then talking to you about these really rare types of eruptions that I feel like people should know about.

Okay lets talk about blue lava (kind of) and black lava

You will notice the lava is still red in the middle of this image, during the day these would look like a normal eruption, but at night the burning sulfur would make it appear blue. Some cool features other than this, would be that any water in the area would become very acidic and burn the skin due to sulfuric acid. This would again be really cool if you are trying to describe a 'cursed' land.

Black lava: This happens only in the east African rift I believe, but it is a carbonatite lava, but if you are writing in a rift valley (where the continent is tearing apart to form a new ocean) this might be a cool feature. The lava will cool white and will quickly erode, it makes for a very alien landscape!

Anyway as always, this is supposed to be an introductive guide for the basics of writing geology to create cool landscapes/features into dnd or fictional universes, if you are a geologist please understand my oversimplification of tectonics, I didn't want people to run away.

#geology #rocks #stem #dnd #dnd worldbuilding #worldbuilding stuff #fictional world #worldbuilding #fictional writing #writing resources #creative writing

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