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@kimlikesart @hannahrenner Ya’ll’s worlds look awesome!!!

 

*cracks knuckles* Now…to actually write my world’s worldbuilding

(THIS IS GOING TO MOTIVATE ME TO ACTUALLY WRITE THAT CASUMBRAN ENCYCLOPEDIA I KEEP MEANING TO WRITE BECAUSE I KEEP FORGETTING THE NAMES OF EVERYTHING I MADE UP ON THE SPOT FOR THE PLOT!!)

 

WORLD CHARACTER CHART TEMPLATE

Name of World: Casumbra

Timeperiod: I have no clue anymore with my timeline but it’s a medieval timeperiod

 

Landscape

There are 12 Kingdoms but the current axis powers are Hesgmarde and Avonia.

Hesgmarde: (capitol Eluan) It’s pretty hot and humid through the year, with tiny rivers and waterfalls like veins throughout many towns between large stones pulled together. The fields are planted in inclined muddy slopes kind’ve like swamps but filled with flowers until it’s time to harvest when the flowers start to wither, and the people pull them up to harvest the beans it grows in its roots.

Oh and there’s lots of draekons that live deep in the riverbeds as long as there’s enough room. As soon as there’s too many the draekons start ravaging and attacking for territory so they’re hunted pretty regularly.

Also it’s a very status-based culture, so it’s like, not fun if you’re not a noble.

 

Avonia: (capitol Tarelin) Still hot, but a lot dryer, it’s to the west of Hesgmarde, on the other side of the Sioan Forest. Not as much greenery, they grow trinch thistle which looks kind’ve like tumbleweed but it’s heavier and doesn’t blow around as much. Aside from that, not much can grow there.

 

Extra features: There are two moons and plants that glow in the dark, and nixies that move the water however they want and can be “soothed” into watering places or providing marine foods if they hear beautiful music (nevermind that if you hit one sour note they might eat you alive) There’s upsidedown rain that pulls water out of the ground (it can cause draughts if it happens too frequently).

Is there magic: Yes, and it is entirely evil.

Is magic accepted: Since the Great War, yes. After ability-borns were overthrown and outlawed, wizards took positions of power, filling in the void left by the shift in power and popular sympathy.

Are there powers or worldbuilding quirks that aren’t considered magic Are they accepted:  There are ability-born – which is the most politically neutral term for people born with special powers – who can have any variety of powers that are tied to their soul, their personality traits, their charism.

Ability-borns used to be called gifteds and were strongly associated with religion and a duty to love and care for others but when some became corrupt and abused their powers the people rebelled and there was a huge massacre after which ability-born were referred to as aberrants and were hunted down. It wasn’t one-sided either, many ability-borns formed guilds to seek revenge against the atrocities done to them and that’s about the current situation.

Also! Not all powers are obvious; gifted powers can be divided into active or passive powers. Active powers being like fire, or memory projection but passive powers can be a particular ability to inspire or extreme determination. Many powers can be buried deep deep down, especially if a person is suppressing their identity. Old schools of thought believed that all people were gifted or were meant to be gifted according to their state in life and their charisma, but gifts actually activate the most when reflecting a person’s core motivations such as the desire to save life or the desire to be understood/understand. Every gift can be used selfishly, especially when the core motive shifts others to self in an imbalanced, negative way.

Also! Also!! Gifts can be attached to items or weapons if the person “bonds” with it, so that the item responds especially to them (like dolls or needles…). Natural bonds increase the person’s ease and ability to tap into their powers and can even increase their powers. But! Forced bonds (which can be done magically or scientifically) never work correctly – the person is never the same, because abilities are tied to the soul a forced bond can cause anything from extreme personality change to full insanity. The only advantage it might provide is if people learn to transfer powers using the item but that’s not worked out yet.

😅👌

AND DIMENSIONS!!! There’s a ton of dimensions in Casumbra but using them is kinda contraband because things can come out of dimensions too! (Like ghouls!) Casumbra is connected to nine different worlds including earth (which is where the humans originally came from) and the dimensions are like portals or pockets in the world and there’s tons of different realms.

Dimension holes can be used as training, puzzles, prisons, storage units and more but reader-powder is used to access them and that’s pretty toxic, plus the more holes there are the more likely people are to fall through dimensions and never come back!

So there’s that! But people keep using it cos it’s cheap and easy to get ahold of.

 

Three common fantasy animals, characters might bump into: (Just three? Ok ok narrow it down to three…)

1. Wulflings: A stale-grey feline breed with batlike ears bushy tail and flecks of gold on its fur. Originally they were breed for nobles but during the Great War they were trained as bloodhounds that hunt in packs, but now they’re mostly strays that can smell negative emotions. Alone they’re more likely to be drawn to people who are hurt and follow their nobility-breed instinct to comfort and be a nice companion animal, but in packs they’re likely to ravage and kill whoever seems like the weakest. Wulfs, though, are much much larger like bigger than a person and they’re trained specially to hunt by smelling a person’s fear and it can trace that emotion in individual people like everyone’s fear smells different to them!

2. Synq: Squirrel like steads used by the dryiniads (forest-race), they’re perfect treeclimbing and rockclimbing steeds with long jumps. They have white, glassy skin. Pointed muzzle, two curling horns and no ears.

3. Meirdogs: Fuzzy beast roughly the size of a sheepdog, but shaped kinda like a bear and a otter with an otter tail. They’re super-duper fuzzy and playful, they have orange pelts and black semi-circle patterns over their face and they can smell illness. They’re not especially plot-important but they’re really cute and I want you to know they exist 😁

 

Natural phenomenon(s) that might be problematic: In Avonia there’s the Swarm that usually occurs during high heat strikes. Large insects with four wings and a tailbone that looks kinda like a bony finger with a sharp point on the end all swarm through destroying crops and carrying contagion. They can’t stop flying without dying and they come in such

large groups they’re as murderous as army ants and all the people hide in basements or secure storage places until they pass (takes anything from a couple hours to a couple days).

And there’s the Sioan Forest but they should totally not land there at all it’s crazy!!!

Non-human races: There’s werecreatures, they can’t use magic and magic doesn’t have any effect on them, they’re kind’ve a minority in this particular area of the world but their eyecolor changes according to their mood (this varies some with intermarriage depending on the degree of someone’s heritage etc, so you’re more likely to see people who can change eye color but can’t fully shift to whatever animal their parents can shift to). The one exception to the eyecolor rule is the werefoxes they always have red eyes. Also! Were-creatures are so strange and interesting to many people because they only shift to one other animal of course but any animal they shift to has to be an actual animal from earth and animals from earth don’t exist in Casumbra. It’s kinda part of their gift so it’s otherworldly. Literally.

Glassfolk, you’re more likely to bump into them, they’re an amphibious race that immigrated farther inland a while back, they have translucent skin which turns transparent when they’re embarrassed and it glows faintly in the dark. They have bright and silky hair like dolls’ hair and usually they have poor eyesight but they have heat and vibration sensing glands in their hands and feed. Also they can like disconnect their arms and legs and throw them at people (especially when bored…). They injure verrrrrry easily but they don’t feel pain or temperature changes as much and they heal very very quickly! They have sticky blue blood that clots fractures/dents and stuff as it expands and they basically glue themselves back together.

They’re super friendly usually because they’re culturally used to a very friendly and informal environment of family-tribes and communities. They basically talk to everyone the exact same way so there is pretty much no concept of respect for authority.

They’re pretty common now but they probably work servant type jobs because Hesgmarde’s status-based system. In Avonia they’re still like pretty recent immigrants there, it’s not the best place for them to be because it’s so hot and there’s not a lot of water and they usually live around water and if they overheat they explode into a million pieces. And they usually don’t notice when they’re overheating! So there’s a high fatality rate in hot areas that don’t have too much water.

I SWEAR I JUST HAVE ONE MORE RACE TO RANT ABOUT THEN I’LL BE DONE!!!! *sends several races scurrying to the back, hiding*

Ok, dryiniads live in the Sioan Forest, they’re pretty isolated from humans usually and can see humans as inferior (but that’s still a controversy like not everyone there believes it).

According to the treaty between humans and dryiniads, humans may pass through their forest but if anyone strays from the Soral Path (I…think that’s the name I stuck with…) then they’re “fair game”. Dryiniads may adopt, or enslave or leave be any humans they find off the path (widows and widowers frequently adopt).

They do not look humanoid, they’re much more like elongated branches or a tangle of branches they have two eyes that move around their trunks independently, they communicate their clicks and vibrations and they’re naturally very sound-sensitive.

 

Place/places they land in/could land in: They could land somewhere in Hesgmarde, and then they’d see Alessio’s home. The only downside to that is everybody thinks he’s dead, the entire political higherups group wants him dead, and a lot’ve things have changed since he left (including his brother’s arranged marriage with a genderfluid shapeshifter gifted who’s disregarding all the rules and solving murders behind his back). But the people love him!

Or they could land Avonia and meet a couple of Alessio’s future friends (@ragnarok yes, the glassgirl, the glassgirl brawler is one of them!!) The only problem thereeee would Avonia’s currently at war with Hesgmarde and they might think our whole group is a group of spies! And there’s a sort’ve zombie apocalypse-scale plague coming up if we stick to the timeline…