Archive for the ‘Creative Creations’ Category

Image credit to RoboSeek.com.

Ryarna is one of the more famous worlds in the Gurhai universe. It is one of the five most magic-rich worlds in the universe, as well as one of the five top technological worlds. The native race are the rarra, who govern the world through the Bardic Collective, a loose guild of bards who keep the peace between rarra, alien visitors, and disembodied spirits that are drawn to Ryarna’s dense magical atmosphere. Ryarna is heavily settled and civilized; because rarra are carnivorous and only protect their important food sources, the world is ecologically simplistic, much of the terrain dry and dusty due to industry and animetal traffic. Ryarna is a hotspot both for magic-workers who wish to train and mechanical tinkerers who wish to study rarran technology; there are many docks and plenty of trade and visitation from other races.

Rarra are bipedal, thin-furred predators who are slightly taller on average than humans. They have almost rabbit-like faces with a single, slender horn on their brows, long and expressive ears, and an upswept mohawk of fur along their skulls. Rarra have short-fingered, paw-like hands and large, clawed, talon-like feet; their legs are powerful, capable of impressive leaps and kicks. Gifted with magic and an inclination to tinker, rarra have melded magical power and steampunk mechanics into a highly-functional, highly-bizarre assortment of machines, robots, vehicles, and tools. Most rarran bits and bobs only work on Ryarna or another high-magic planet, but the mechanical designs are often adapted by other races (notably buthines) for use on normal- or low-magic worlds. All rarra are trained to use some form of magic, and most are educated in a hands-on mechanical trade or a design-oriented engineering field.

Animetals are known throughout the civilized universe as bizarre miracles. They are mechanical animals, comprised of a spirit (usually the ghost of a creature that wasn’t ready to die) and an articulated robotic shell (designed and made by rarran engineers and inventors). The spirit and shell are fused via rarran bardic magic, so that the spirit powers the shell and ‘dies’ when the shell dies. Though they are clearly robots and possess no feathers, fur, scales, or hide (or anything simulating those), animetals behave and live as animals, though some have unusually high intelligence, occasionally approaching sapience. Animetals can be varying sizes, colors/patterns, and animal types. They’re designed to never need actual maintenance, using the fused spirits to keep the shell in working order; heavy damage requires rarran mechanics to repair, however. (There are theories that, given enough time, a spirit can repair even considerable damage to its shell. However, that is a feral attribute and not one easily observed by rarra.) While some animetals have been made on a smaller-than-life scale – a large hunting cat weighing only ten pounds, for example – most animetals are 1:1 or set to a larger scale. Typical animetal shells are made on a 2:1 scale, while custom/display-only/rider shells are often made on a 3:1, 4:1, or 5:1 scale. Large, intelligent animetals are paired with a trained rarran pilot for use as soldiers (S-class animetals, typically with an internal cockpit set in the head or chest) or transportation (T-class animetals, often with an external cockpit and a tow-hitch for a bus or blimp). Animetals have largely replaced “fleshies” in Ryarna’s ecosystem, barring key species to keep the flora healthy and the rarra fed.

The tahori are a species of shapeshifter inhabiting the Gurhai universe. They possess three distinct forms or skins and use qki, or physical energy, to change between them. Shapeshifting is nonmagical and fairly swift, taking less than a minute on a normal world and healing most wounds in the process. The first skin (hamin) is quite humanoid and may pass as a genuine human if one doesn’t look too closely and spot the tail; the second skin (sanero) is a very large beast with few visual indicators of intelligence; the third skin (emigonu) is a bipedal hybrid between the first two skins. (Please note that tahori are not shapeshifting humans, but a distinct species who happen to have a humanoid skin.) Tahori do not experience a large change in intelligence or behavioral pattern when switching between skins – they are just as bestial in hamin skin and just as intelligent in sanero skin. Though tahori usually wear clothing in hamin skin, they rarely wear shoes or metal (such as armor), and they wear no clothing in sanero and emigonu skins. All tahori retain the same coloration and pattern throughout their skins, though the colors are often desaturated in hamin skin (due to the lack of pigmented fur; their skin in other forms, beneath the pelt, is equally dull).

Tahori are striated into specific races that can interbreed in their hamin skins, but remain largely incompatible elsewise. All races but one live on Alasa Ka, a primal world similar to an prehistoric Earth with rather large fauna; the other race, keusune tahori, lives on At-lasa in a nearby sun system and are often outcast from the species by their fellow tahori.

Inlanlu tahori are lupine, living in tight-knit packs with a hierarchal structure. They’re the most populous of the tahori and hold territories in nearly every climate on Alasa Ka. Inlanlu are renowned for their physical endurance and are staunch hunter-warriors, unafraid of conflict although they don’t specifically seek it out; their trademark weapon is the double-bladed spear with a two-inch-thick shaft of hardwood with a metal core. They rarely truck with magic, although some hereditary lines have faint shamanic leanings, and usually shun technology beyond weaponsmithing. Inlanlu speak Uhjayi, which is the most common tahori language.

Atihresi tahori are feline with several markedly different breeds. Through necessity, atihresi have mimicked inlanlu pack structure and territory, though they are largely self-contained and independent individuals. They are more numerous than all but inlanlu and reside in any clime. They tend to use blades or bows and often have considerable skill with external qki, making them formidable fighters; however, few atihresi show any inclination towards magic. They speak Fulhu, the second most common tahori language. Atihresi are often rivals or outright enemies of inlanlu, and few individuals call themselves friends of the other race.

Dosa tahori are ursine. They live in small groups or alone, have a decided gift with natural and druidic magic, and are generally private people. They don’t interact or interfere much with other races. They rarely use weapons and have no love of technology of any kind, even basic smithing.

Izune tahori are avians with a wide array of breeds. They have no hair at all in hamin skin, usually refuse to wear any clothing, and tend to be vividly colored, so they rarely pass as humans, even from a distance. Renowned for their sensitivity to qki and magic, izune have keen senses and a knack for elemental magic, especially pertaining to wind and weather. They live in huge flocks, shunning technology, and are typically aloof; other races easily misjudge their calm reservation as arrogance or emotionlessness.

Ehsora tahori are equine and the least language-inclined of the tahori, often communicating solely through body language. They travel in large, nomadic herds and have nothing to do with technology or weaponry; their clothing is minimalistic and usually obtained from a hunting race. Deeply gifted with natural druidic magic with a special affinity for plants, ehsora are perhaps the most attuned to the earth of all the tahori. Being the only purely herbivorous tahori, they’re also usually wary of other races’ intentions and tend to be slightly xenophobic.

Aresa tahori are giant serpents that, like izune, are entirely hairless in their hamin skins and cannot pass for human. They refuse to wear clothing or use weaponry. Though they don’t dabble in magic themselves, they’re innately talented at detecting the use of magic or qki. Some aresa stay solitary for most or all of their lives; other aresa band together in small swarms to claim a territory and the prey that grazes there. Curious, hard-to-read, and somewhat anarchistic, aresa are considered very ‘alien’ tahori, even to their fellow tahori.

Kahashi tahori are shark-like, the only amphibious tahori – they can breathe on land and in water in both hamin and emigonu skins, but are solely water-bound in their sanero skin. They have no hair in hamin skin and most don’t wear clothing; they’re also the only tahori to have no tail in hamin skin. Kahashi scorn both magic and weaponry of all kinds, preferring to use their own bodies as the most deadly weapon at their disposals. They’re loosely social with each other but are usually viewed as dangerously unpredictable by the landlocked races. Their secondary name is sasemiyukashuh, meaning ‘death in the water’ in Uhjayi.

Keusune tahori live on At-lasa and are considered ‘Others’, having no clear zoological family (e.g. feline, canine, etc) to which they belong. Often stymying those who see them for the first time, keusunes are considered to be similar to large mammalian predators, as though a combination of bear, cat, and wolf with a long, prehensile tail. Keusunes have a more industrialized civilization than the other tahori, reaching into basic technology like machinery and refined architecture. Their trademark weapons are half-magic, half-technology: a curving blade atop a slender wooden hilt that can be folded outwards to create a double-bladed knife, then enlarged with qki to become a keusunian glaive. While some keusune communities are still very primitive, even feral, many groups are more civilized and act as merchants to non-tahori, especially k’anta, who are typically mortal enemies of the tahori; keusunes have a colony world in the same sun system as At-lasa, where most of their industry and trading takes place. Keusunes have strong inclinations towards bardic magic and are usually sound-oriented.

Shikin haramitsu daikomyo.
Dai kipt ese psh daes esh e dai lun byst te kA dayo d’ft.

Know what they mean?

The first is a real Japanese phrase meaning, very roughly, “every encounter holds the possibility for enlightenment.” The second is Kalash, a language I’m designing to be the common tongue of dozens of sentient races on Lavana. It means, very roughly, “I would be well but for the circumstances around me.”

I mentioned conlangs, or constructed languages, in my last post about worldbuilding. I am most assuredly a fan of language in general, and I can’t resist the concept of creating my own language – with vocabulary influenced by the speaker’s culture and a range of sounds determined by the shape of the speaker’s usually-inhuman mouth. I’m also a great fan of privacy and have made a few cyphers (or conalphs – constructed alphabets, consistently trading one letter for another) for use when I don’t want anyone but the recipient to read what I’m writing.

Singing a cypher-encrypted song is also rather fun. Especially when the cypher in question changes the syllable pattern.

My first cypher was Khraenian, a one-way cypher made as the primary language of Khraen, a planet I co-designed with my sister, E. A one-way cypher is a little more difficult to manage than a two-way, at least as far as memorization is concerned – for example, going from English to Khraenian, B becomes D, but D becomes K, and K becomes T, and T becomes R. In other words, B = D, but D =/= B. Slightly bogged down by this bulkier method of cyphering, I created Kommu (aka Dannu) as the epitome of simplicity. It’s a two-way cypher: D = T and T = D. It has a prettier sound in general, doesn’t change the syllable count as often, and sounds good when spoken or sung aloud. Besides, you can make language translators with two-way cyphers very easily.

Conlangs, however, are not cyphers. Conlangs have syntax, grammar, punctuation, a written script/alphabet, vocabulary, and often a set of sounds that the human mouth may not be able to pronounce correctly or at all. You can develop a conlang in relatively little time if all you need are a handful of words with a consistent look and sound for judicious use by your story’s non-humans, or you can spend a lifetime creating a real-size language with history, dialects, a writing system, and a mathematic system that isn’t base 10.

Myself, I tend to dabble in both extremes. Kalash currently consists of a handful of phrases and words, very little sense of alien syntax, and the growing idea that it’s a pidgin tongue drawing from three or four main roots of other, as-of-yet undesigned, fictional languages spoken by a few Lavanian species. On the other hand, Uhjayi is the native tongue of the inlanlu tahori with a syllabic root system, a written phonetic script, and a syntax considerably different from that of English. Uhjayi is undergoing major revamping currently, but I’ll happily showcase it more thoroughly in the future, when it’s ready for prying eyes other than my own to ogle it.

What about you? Have you ever messed with strange alphabets, cyphers, or even conlangs – either for pleasure or for storytelling?

You know what? It’s a mite difficult to post every other day when you’re sleep-deprived and heavily medicated for pain.

Just sayin’.

I’m debating on starting a series of worldbuilding creature development posts, using one of my own species as an example. The pros on this are the resource it would create for you, my reader, and the fun I’d get to have in exploring Olashi history and culture; the con is how inconclusive and patchwork it might be. To mitigate the con, I began doing a little bit of research on worldbuilding and discovered that my methodry is actually geofiction. Wikipedia describes it as “a hobby where people design imaginary cities, countries or entire worlds, including placenames, culture, social and political structures and even constructed languages (conlangs), primarily for personal enjoyment.” (You and I will talk about conlangs later, I promise.)

In my leisurely digging, I found several excellent worldbuilding resources to share with you, but most of these seem to assume that you’re working with a human or humanoid race. I haven’t found much talk about methane-breathers or wholly underwater sapients, except as monsters or figures of myth. Perhaps a little miniseries exploring how to go about expanding and deepening the culture and developmental history of your non-human race would be useful after all, eh?

While I continue my research and possibly begin outlining such a series of posts, have some worthwhile worldbuilding resources.

• Worldbuiling on Wikipedia – A standard, fairly thorough explanation of what worldbuilding is and how to do it.

• Fantasy World-Building Questions by Patricia C. Wrede – A good series of questions to ask yourself during the worldbuilding process, including a few about sapient culture development.
• 30 Days of Worldbuilding – A great miniseries from a NaNoWriMo enthusiast with thirty days of fifteen-minute exercises to broaden your world. The same author also produced the Magical World Builder’s Guide.
• Science Fiction Worldbuilding – A slightly sparse guide to building up a believable scifi setting.
• Worldbuilding Links – An immense directory of world-building resources for your perusal. I haven’t even had time to see them all yet!
• World Builder Projects – A well-organized list of worldbuilding resources, including forums, names, languages, and general guides.
• Fantasy Worldbuilding Resources – The biggest resource I’ve found yet. The page scrolls forever and has links to a multitude of useful sites, books, and images.
• Physical Geography – If you want to make a geographically-realistic world, check out this online resource on geography and make your world with real rules in mind.

I find designing worlds and their inhabitants – flora, fauna, and sapients all – to be the most enjoyable part of writing. What do you think about worldbuilding? Do you use any kind of tools to help you design, like a map generator, or do you go at it freestyle? Feel free to share links to resources on world-building or any aspect thereof!

Oh, Ykinde. One of my prized worlds, a land of organic magic and steampunk technology, the setting of Into Fang Wood. I have done more work on this world than I have on most others, Lavana and Cadora being the exceptions that spring to mind. (Cadora may be introduced in a later blog post, but as I have no current projects set there, it may be some ways down the road.)

Bear with me, as there’s a lot to tell about Ykinde and this post may wind up a little long.

The People

It’s impossible to describe Ykinde without briefly introducing you to its four major intelligent races: Avans, humans, Lupos, and Panthera. Each link will take you to a complete page on their physical capabilities, their castes/classes, and their cultures, but I’ve provided a brief summary below.

Avans are tall, slender, wingless bird-people with round faces and curving beaks. Renowned for their knowledge of and skill with magic, Avans are sophisticated, civilized people whose bright plumage and love of flowing, ornate clothing easily sets them apart from all other Ykindeans. Living under the idea of Beauty in grand and beautiful cities, most Avans are mages or artful warriors, though many are medical scholars, and some few profess to be naturalists. They are mortal enemies of the Lupos, engaged in the Elderwar for centuries running, and relentless in their quest to see the wolf-people vanquished; they are allies with the humans and most Avans are neutral towards the Panthera, although many will fight them alongside Lupos if necessary.

Humans are remarkably average, tail-less, flat-faced people with bare skin and unimpressive bodies. Well-known for their ingenuity and inventiveness, humans tinker with mechanical devices and sort themselves into family-run businesses. Neutral in the Elderwar, they act as merchants and traders to both Lupos and Avans, supplying both races with whatever goods and raw materials are in high demand. One human family enslaved the Panthera Walker tribe as bodyguards and servants, but after the Walkers’ escape from slavery, most humans will kill or seek to capture Panthera on sight. Humans preserve and enforce their neutrality with both Lupos and Avans, straddling the most profitable line of action at all times. Though they are businesspeople first and foremost, dedicated to their family’s trade, humans also study other paths: they are soldiers, medics, witches, or engineers.

Lupos are powerful, furred, tauroid wolf-people with four legs and two arms. A strong and spiritual people, the Lupos live in harmony with the natural world around them, worshiping Father Sun, Mother Moon, Brother Sky, and Sister Earth. Lupos band together in clans, led by a single chieftain and a few betas; many are shamans and braves, while others are healers and rangers. Their tools and weaponry are simple, sturdy, and plain; they have little use for showy luxuries or impractical belongings. They are mortal enemies of the Avans, engaged in the Elderwar for centuries running, and they are tireless in their efforts to defend their land and their people; they are allies with the humans, and most clans are also allied with or neutral towards the Panthera. The Tehar Lupos were the ones to succor the Panthera Walkers when they escaped from human slavery in Royalwood.

Panthera are lithe, agile, feral cat-people with wide faces and rounded ears. Traditionally primitive and nomadic, the Panthera wander Ykinde in tribes, moving as part of the predator-prey cycle as hunters. One particular tribe, the Panthera Walkers, was captured and enslaved by humans; after many years, they escaped and found sanctuary with the Tehar Lupos, rebuilding their tribe and becoming the first stationary band of Panthera Ykinde had ever seen. (The Hunters are the only other non-nomadic Panthera tribe; they are an off-shoot of the Walkers.) Nomadic Panthera have few possessions or tools, but the Walkers and Hunters trade with Lupos and have a similar quality of life. Many are bloodwalkers and spiritwalkers, while others are lifewalkers and beastwalkers. They are enemies of the humans, their former slavers, and allies with the Lupos; they are neutral towards many Avans, but will fight those who attack their wolfish allies.

The Place

Most of Ykinde is fairly temperate, experiencing seasonal changes. The farther north you go, the less lush the land becomes, devolving into sparse deciduous forests, mountains with evergreens, and finally flattened tundras. There is quite a large portion of land that consists mostly of rolling mountains, savannas, and scattered greenery. The coasts are extensive and tend to be quite tropical, except for the northernmost stretches; nearly all of the coastline is well-forested, oftentimes a jungle, and pocked with inlets and small bays that make perfect seaports for the human traders. Both Lupos and Avans prefer to settle in rich lands with many trees; the Lupos keep their lands well-forested to encourage grazing animals, whereas the Avans will clear out patches to build their cities and to farm.

Humans have controlled Ykinde’s economy since the beginning of the Elderwar. They established a basic currency using gems and coins made of precious metals, made prices relative to the buyer’s race, and also established a quality check for items to be bartered, rather than purchased. They trade only with Lupos and Avans, killing or attempting to capture Panthera on sight. Panthera barter goods with Lupos, who barter goods or use currency to trade with humans, who use currency (or very rarely barter) to trade with Avans. Each race has its forte in amassing raw goods and crafting some things: Panthera are skilled leatherworkers, Lupos construct sturdy homes and also are good weaponcrafters, humans invent and create technological gadgets, and Avans are skilled weaponsmiths. All of the races are at least decent at making weaponry and armor, as well as living quarters and other basic tools to survive.

Read the rest of this entry »

After introducing The Demon-God of Jubagh, I realized I should probably explain to you just how this crazy universe works. If you want the full, glorious detail, you can look at the mechanics page on the wiki, but I’ll try to give you a good overview here.

Gurhai is a finite universe. Like a geode, it has open space enclosed by an oval shell made of densely-packed organic and mineral detritus. There is a flat layer of sun systems that stretches length-wise in the very center of the shell. There are precisely one hundred worlds in the universe, separated into thirty-five sun systems; similarly, there are exactly one hundred sentient species in the universe, though not evenly distributed as one-per-world. All but two worlds in the universe are round and flat; Airdh (the First World) and Gurhai (the Last World) are the only spherical worlds, and they are at the far ends of the universe, a full year’s travel apart. The suns are mobile and small, weaving or springing between planets in their systems, and there are no actual moons. In the top and bottom halves of the void, which are striated by the layer of worlds, there are creatures unlike any found on the worlds, living on the edges of atmosphere and gravity wells.

Gravitic ore is the glue that holds the universe together; it is a polarized mineral found at the center of a planet’s crust. The polar side has a very strong attraction – gravity – and the non-polar side has a very weak attraction, but does not repel. Gravitic ore is dark and reflective, resembling a cross between hematite and coal anthracite. In addition to producing gravity, gravitic ore also produces the magical energy inherent in each world, similarly polarized; while the strength of gravity varies little between worlds, the magic density fluctuates greatly between planets, going from magic-dry to magic-rich. The polarity of the gravitic ore determines which face of a flat world will become the life-supporting side; the non-polar side will only be strong enough to keep very heavy objects in place, such as rocks and ore. The non-polar face of the world also contains dry ice, which creates the thick, drifting fog that obscures the undersides of the worlds. Gravitic ore can be carefully mined to be placed sparingly in the lowest decks of intersun ships, giving them gravity and a source of magic while they venture into the void between suns. Gravitic ore also constitutes the majority of the materials that comprise the shell of the universe, making it nigh-deadly to approach the rocky barrier; the intense gravity will pull any ships in and smash them against the rocks.

The worlds, as previously mentioned, are mostly flat, round worlds. They support life, have gravity, and produce magical energy only on one face; the other face is rocky, barren, and clouded with mist from dry ice. Worlds vary greatly in magical density, but less so in size; the smallest world is half the diameter of the largest world, and all other worlds range between them. There is a rim of high mountains encircling the entire planet, which keeps creatures, water, and other resources from falling off the edge of the world. Atmosphere is generated by the plant life on each world; it has no defined boundary, but simply gets thinner and weaker as travelers move away from the world, becoming unbreathable eventually. The skies look different on each world; in many cases, one can see the other worlds of the system, if the world faces them; other worlds appear approximately as large as Earth’s moon in the sky.

Travel between the worlds is common. A dozen races design and build their own intersun ships, but the most common by far are Loi ships, halasshian ships, human ships, and buthinian ships. Human and halasshian ships have always had gravity and a source of magical energy, due to being constructed with a very thin layer of gravitic ore in the bottom deck, which also holds the soil, water, and plant life necessary to maintain a breathable atmosphere in the void. Buthinian ships do not have gravity or magic once they leave the planet; Loi ships were the same at first, but many Loi ships are now constructed with gravitic ore in a manner similar to halasshian and human ships. Because gravitic ore is responsible for generating magic, and because magic density varies so drastically between worlds, intersun ships constructed on magic-rich worlds are more prized by most than ships constructed on magic-dry worlds. Intersun ships are shaped and built much like water-going ships, complete with a keel, multiple deck layers, an outer/upper deck, and many sails. All ships have an entire deck or more devoted to flora; once the ship leaves the planet’s atmosphere, all windows and doors are sealed, the upper deck is no longer walked, and the air produced by the plants on-ship keep the passengers alive until they reach the next planet. The universe is not an unbearably large place; fast ships can make the trip from the First World to the Last World in a year, with most sun systems having neighboring suns within a month or two of travel. It generally takes no more than a day to go between worlds in the same system.

Intersun ships do not land on-world once they have launched, since the world’s gravity would smash the vessel into the planet; the people build docks well above the world’s surface, where the pull of gravity is weaker, where the large ships can load and unload their passengers and cargo. Smaller boats without gravitic ore can make the trip between planet surface and intersun dock to transfer people and items. The hovering intersun docks are maintained via magical or mechanical means, depending on the world in question and the technology/magic level of the people who maintain the docks; the on-world boats that travel between dock and world are powered in the same fashion. Intersun ships themselves use a combination of magic, machinery, and void winds to move; the former two are what enable the ships to navigate within atmosphere or when close to worlds, but when between sun systems, the void winds propel the ships. Void winds are present everywhere near the layer of worlds in the universe, but they are not breathable by any world-dwelling creature; void winds are usually strong, can crop up into gale-force storms, and can occasionally die out and leave a ship idling in the darkness for a while.

Until I do a post on Gurhai energies, have some complimentary nachos and references on qki and magic, the Light and its workers, human magic classes, and general magic classes.

The Tri-System itself is the solar system in which Lavana resides; it consists of three planets (hence the name), two moons, and an aging yellow star much like Earth’s own sun. The Tri-System is very unusual in the fact that the planets do not orbit the sun separately, and the moons do not orbit any one planet. As lore goes, a highly advanced race of beings, simply called the Creators, are responsible for making not only all life on the worlds, but also the solar system itself. So, it’s their ‘fault’ that the planets wound up too close to each other to resist one another’s gravitational pulls: all three planets, with the two moons in the middle of the mess, orbit each other in one massive battle of gravity, even as they swing elliptically around the sun. So, even at night, even when the moons aren’t visible, one planet or another is usually seen hanging heavily in the darkened sky.

The star is called Ghrayu, the name given by Nila ages ago and adopted by nearly all other races; it appears orange and huge in the skies. The larger of the two moons is Veron, a silvery-blue orb that hangs very close to Lavana’s surface; the smaller of the two is Xerachin, which appears copper-colored and, being farther from Lavana than Veron, is often partially eclipsed by the larger moon. The largest of the planets is Lavana, which we’ll discuss more in a moment; the other two are Terole – the smallest planet – and Shakala. Terole is the planet that stays closest to Ghrayu; it appears rust-colored or tawny and is a barren desert on the surface, only capable of supporting unprotected life in a strip along the Tropic of Nankampi. Shakala is the planet farthest from Ghrayu; it appears pearly-white and is a snowy wasteland, though a small handful of creatures do live in the midst of blizzards and glaciers.

Lavana is a beautiful world whose surface appeal belies a vicious and deadly ecology. With pale violet skies and rosy clouds that darken to greyed red-purples when heavy with rainstorms and deep violets when filled with snow, Lavana seems like a child’s fantasy world. While most of the trees have grey, grey-brown, or brown trunks like those of Earth, leaves are most commonly shades of blue, although purple and green are also very common. Lavana’s two main types of grass are also interesting in hue: short blades of pale blue grass shaped like stiff strings of beads (appropriately called beadgrass) often intermingle with long, wheat-like strands of golden grasses. Seen from Lavana, the sun is fiery gold, Veron silver, and Xerachin ruddy golden; the stars are all the colors of the rainbow. Water is tinted slightly teal-violet, and oceans especially display this rich, vibrant color.

Lavana has two main continents: Handak and Penyns. Penyns is the largest continent: two massive, irregular blocks of land (one in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern) connected by a thick landbridge on the far left (west), a sea invading from the right. Penyns’ northernmost and southernmost points are frosted and covered in snowy tundra, while the rest of the continent has climate appropriate to its distance from the equator, which crosses the lower half of the landbridge. On the opposite side of the world is Handak, second-largest continent and rather ambiguously shaped. While not as east-to-west wide as Penyns, Handak has the same range north-to-south and thus much the same variety of climates, though its terrain is far less mountainous and thickly forested. The few Lavanian deserts are all on Handak, scattered to the north or south of the equator.

Lavana’s only minor continent is southwest of Penyns and southeast of Handak; Honshane (“Refuge” or “Sanctuary”) was discovered in the third millenium during the Dark Wars. Honshane is perhaps the most interesting of the three, for its surface area is likely equal to that of Penyns due to so many huge cave systems networked under rolling mountains, although its amoeba-like shape is only the size of the northern half of Penyns. There are also strange floating islands that drift with the cross-currents of air over Honshane; these can be reached by a Minmon standing on its hind legs, so low they fly, yet none of them ever seem to brush against a mountaintop. Honshane holds untold mysteries and very, very few native inhabitants – but here are a few new species never before seen on the rest of Lavana, as well as the fifth Korat breed, browns.

While Lavana has relatively few continents, it is fairly riddled with islands and island chains. Most chains are near or on the equator, and one of the most famous ones – the Stepping Stones – provides a bridge from Handak’s eastern shore to Penyns’ western, with the largest water-gap between islands only twenty-three miles across. Some of the Stones are a foot or two underwater, but they still provide a way across for Lavanians who have never made boats.

Lavana’s bodies of water don’t attract as much attention as they should, likely because most saltwater is filled with vicious sea monsters that are bigger than many islands. The ocean that stretches from Handak’s eastern shore to Penyns’ western one (which contains the Stepping Stones as well as part of Honshane) is called Vyolit, “Beauty” to those living on its shores. The ocean separating Penyns’ eastern shore from Handak’s western one, a place largely devoid of large islands or even island chains, is called Tiuna, “Fierce” to any who have ever glimpsed the saltwater behemoths underneath its calm surface. The arctic seas (which freeze into glaciers at the poles) are simply called North Sea and South Sea, although they’re large enough to be considered oceans, and the last body of saltwater worth mentioning is the long, narrow sea sandwiched between the two halves of Penyns — Morning Sea, as the sun touches its waters first. While Lavana has no major rivers (comparable to the Mississippi or the Amazon), it does have one delta-marsh-swamp area north of the land bridge on the northern half of Penyns called the Falls. The Falls encompass several thousand acres of land and fill these areas with thick, warm mist that never completely clears and often becomes so dense that one cannot see their nose in front of their face. The Falls are also the birthplace (technically Creation-place) of many of the older but odder species, and rumor holds it to be a strange, mysterious, dangerous area that few voluntarily enter.

Lavana is one of my primary settings for writing and a world I’ve been discovering/developing for over a decade. Storytellers, why don’t you tell me about some of your worlds or settings that are near and dear to you?

“Korats? You mean those pretty silver-blue housecats from ancient Siam?”

Um, no. I mean these:

That, my dear readers, is my kind of Korat. (The fact that they share a name with an admittedly nifty breed of cat is completely accidental. My Korats got their name years before I ever found out about Korats-the-housecats.)

Korats are my favorite and one of my most-often-featured fictional species. They reside on Lavana (the subject of the next post), one of my primary worlds. Lavana is slightly larger than Earth with proportionately stronger gravity and a similar range of terrains and climates; its sky is pale violet, its clouds rosy pink, its sun – Ghrayu – a bold orange, and much of its grasses pastel blue. Don’t let the fanciful color scheme fool you, though – Lavana is a hostile, deadly world, filled with strange and dangerous creatures.

Quadrupedal predators, Korats are often regarded as the ‘average Lavanian,’ for all that they seem to be one of the most successful species. Korats have canine heads, shark-like teeth, round-pupiled eyes, and lupine ears. Their necks are a few feet long and held tightly in an S-curve, almost jointed; it takes a muscle spasm for them to ‘unlock’ their necks, and it’s also rather hard to slit a Korat’s throat, as their necks are thickly-muscled. They have deep chests and narrower waists. Their forelegs are slender compared to their hind, ending in forehands with small V-shaped palms and two retractably-clawed ‘fingers’. Their hind legs are powerful with a three-toed paw resembling that of a Velociraptor; their innermost toe is held upright, off the ground, and totes a ‘longclaw’ – a scythe-shaped claw usually 6 inches long. Males have long, fast tails with a curving ‘tailblade’ made of bone branching off near the tailtip; some females can have this as well, though it’s rare. Most females, instead, have shorter and very muscular tails.

Korats are small for Lavanians, standing at 3-6 feet at the withers. They’re striated into five distinct breeds – lean and swift tans, graceful and toned blacks, sturdy and muscular reds, tall and powerful whites, and tough and shaggy browns – as well as a genetic mutation, a striped that combines two breeds. Koratian breeds determine not only the physical appearance, but also the body’s strength, speed, endurance, flexibility, and agility, as well as the mind’s general temperament and sociability. Korats tend towards a pack structure, with a leader and a few secondary leaders guiding the group’s activities and drawing the bounds of territory; they don’t use tools and many abhor the scent of metal objects.

The complete biography – including full physical description, breed details, history, society, and culture – can be found in the Bestiary under ‘Korat’. I have all the details I could think to write on that single page, so it’s fairly long (and why I summarized, rather than copy-pasted, in this entry). You can also check out the Korat Gallery for some illustrations by various artists.

I’ve written (but not finished) one Korat novel so far, entitled Outcast, and I’m contemplating either completing that story or starting anew for my third writing project. I figured now was a good time to get you used to hearing about Korats; I’ll see if I can’t find a little piece of fiction to toss up shortly. Besides, the Korat biography is a good glimpse of how detailed my creature-building can get – and perhaps an inspiration for other worldmakers to write their ideas down.

What kinds of creatures have you come up with to populate your fiction?

The above is the front cover my first and so far only self-published novel, The Demon-God of Jubagh. It’s the first book of the first trilogy, whose rough draft is finished; the second trilogy is The Renegades of Jubagh and is about halfway done. Both trilogies (and any future installments) belong to the Jubagh series, set in the Gurhai universe.

The Demon-God of Jubagh (which I will often abbreviate as TDGoJ) was begun as a pre-NaNoWriMo novel in 2007. I wrote a one-line summary that sounded like fun, expanded it to a short paragraph, and set out with the intent to write a little bit of the story every day. (I’m terrible at doing anything that regularly, so it was an exercise in self-discipline as much as creativity.)

In a dark universe, in an era of instability and fluctuations of chaos, a [black mage] helps an [exiled paladin] stop the indigenous population of [an Earth-like world] from summoning [an evil god], with the assistance of [a tribal native].

This is a sword-and-sorcery/scifi with an emphasis on reversing stereotypes. The story is about a black mage, an exiled paladin, and a tribal native. It starts in an outpost in a demon-haunted land. The story begins with a heated conversation and climaxes with a tragedy. The critical element of the story is a death. A conflict between those who use magic and those who don’t plays a major role in the story.

Credit Where Credit’s Due: The formats of the one-liner and the paragraph are taken from Seventh Sanctum’s action film and story generators, respectively.

One month later, I’d finished the first book of the trilogy. November was at hand, so I flung myself into NaNoWriMo with enthusiasm and wrote the second book and part of the third. By mid-December, I’d finished the entire trilogy, and my mind was reeling. This was the first major project I’d ever finished. I had done zero worldbuilding or brainstorming or plot-weaving in advance. I’d just written an entire trilogy, a total of roughly one hundred thousand words, by the seat of my pants.

I took a breather, fairly burned out by writing so much in ten weeks, then began the next trilogy, The Renegades of Jubagh (TRoJ). It followed the same three main characters that rose to stardom in TDGoJ; I got halfway through the second book of three before burning out again.

I’ve spent my time since then fleshing out the mechanics of the Gurhai universe, its people, and its worlds (check out the starmap!). There are exactly 100 sapients and 100 worlds in the universe; it is finite and measurable by anyone with a good intersun ship. The Jubagh series is segregated into books named after the planets on which they’re set – Book One: Jubagh, Book Two: Sivef, and Book Three: Gurhai for The Demon-God of Jubagh, and Book One: Thurmenyan, Book Two: Ryarna, and Book Three: Ztar for The Renegades of Jubagh.

As I was up to my elbows in fresh mud and creatures, I realized that there was a prequel skulking in the shadows. Book Zero, Enmity, deals with how the aforementioned black mage (Rai Gerring) and exiled paladin (Brandon Styhan) met – and all the chaos that ensued when two men from fatally opposed factions didn’t immediately kill each other. Now my goal is to finish worldbuilding, then start writing the rough draft of Enmity, whose outline is already written and saved.

While Into Fang Wood is going to take the foremost burner, I’ll be continuing work on the Gurhai ‘verse and its worldbuilding in preparation for starting Enmity after IFW is finished and in revisions. Personally, I tend to do best when I have more than one project to play with, so that when I burn out on one, I can switch to the other. How do you manage and mitigate writer’s burn-out? Do you enjoy having multiple irons in the fire, or do you prefer to concentrate on one thing at a time?

One of my current writing projects is Into Fang Wood, my 2008 NaNoWriMo novel. From humble beginnings, it erupted into a wild tangle of epic growth, demanding a rewrite and an intensive outline before all the hidden jewels could be unearthed. (Jewels and brambles. You’ll notice I mix’n'match my metaphors a lot.) I’m currently staring at the first 60k and slogging through the painstaking detail of completing its new outline, preparing to revamp and rewrite before I can actually move forward in the story. This is going to be one of those delightfully fat paperbacks.

Into Fang Wood is a fantasy novel set in the world of Ykinde – that link will take you to a treasure trove of information about the world and its creatures, including an atlas and general histories. In the midst of a blood-feud that’s lasted for centuries between the Lupos and Avan peoples, a new evil develops in the depths of Fang Wood and begins to spread its terrifying influence. Wolfrunner, a Panthera beastwalker, stumbles upon the dread secret of Fang Wood and becomes the catalyst for a battle for survival that will involve all the intelligent people of Ykinde – Panthera, Lupos, Avans, and humans. As the curse of Fang Wood claims more souls, Wolfrunner and the others must find and destroy the master who controls it… before the entire world falls under its shadow.

…or, you know, something like that. My skill at writing back-cover blurbs needs work.

IFW is one of the two primary projects that I have right now; the other, the Jubagh series, will be introduced in another post. I am completely enthralled to this story, which grew from a bumbling cub to a tentacular, knotty creature within the span of months. The original was simply a light character-based story about two Panthera – Wolfrunner, a feral shapeshifter, and Shieldbreaker, a staunch warrior – and their strange but functional person-to-animal relationship. Now, the story encompasses a world-threatening mystery, every sapient race on Ykinde, and a potential turning point in the Elderwar, the ancient blood-feud. It still manages to revolve around Wolfrunner and Shieldbreaker, but they’re so drastically changed by the experiences they survive that they’re entirely different people come the end.

That’s how it works, though. You plant the seed of a story, you give it the water of your time and the sunlight of your attention, and you watch as it grows beyond your wildest expectations. Into Fang Wood is going to be the manuscript that, once finished, I send out to agents to see if any take the bait. It may not be my greatest accomplishment, but by the end, I will be proud of how it’s grown. I’m only the gardener – it has a life of its own now, and I’m just along for the ride.

If you’re a story-teller – and I bet most of you are – how have your stories taken on lives of their own? Have you tried to control and corral them, or do you let them twist and burst forth?