elvaria-project
A fantasy worldbuilding project focusing mainly on elves. This account has been retired, my posting account is now @ilisteria
99 posts
Latest Posts by elvaria-project
I'm bored of elemental giants. Use environmental giants instead.
Environmental Giants all start out the same, but their bodies take up the features of the place they live in. They become a reflection of their domain.
Giant takes up residence in the cliffs of dover? Not a stone giant. No, that's specifically The Giant of Dover. Its body is made of chalk. It can create dust clouds of chalk with its breath, its shoulders are padded with tufts of short grasses and blackberry bushes.
Giant takes up residence in the ruins of a highway during an apocalypse? That's the I-95 Giant. It has rebar spines along its back, skin of pavement and concrete, and wears wrecked cars as armor.
And to make this idea more dynamic, the giant's form changes as the ecosystem changes. A river gets diverted away from a Giant's domain? Then the Giant dries up along with its land. Now the Giant has an incentive to protect its dominion, and a weakness that its enemies can exploit.
super simple low-effort ao3 summary methods that are 1000% better and 1000% less annoying than just saying you suck at summaries:
copypaste the first few lines of the fic. u already wrote ‘em. let ‘em be their own damn hook
if ur feeling fancy & don’t mind showing ur hand a bit, copypaste the first few lines of the fic that u feel are esp. Important or Interesting - the ones where u first start getting into the real meat of things
state the main tropes! theyre probably already in ur tags - just say them again - maybe as a full sentence if ur feelin fancy. or with a joke if ur feelin Extra fancy
ask a question. pose a hypothetical. eg what happens if u take [character] and put them in [situation]?
make an equation. [character] + [thing] = [outcome]
just write like a one-sentence summary of what the fuck is going down. just one (1) sentence. doesnt matter if it doesn’t cover every important aspect. or if it sounds bland. any summary sentence is gonna be miles better than “idk i suck at summaries”
just…explain the fic like u would to a friend? it doesnt have to be a polished back of the book blurb. it can just be “[pairing] coffee shop au, but like, still with murder, and also i made everyone trans. enjoy”
just stick a meme in there
honestly who cares
just put literally anything but a self deprecating comment in there & ur golden
Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):
“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.
“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.
“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.
“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”
“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”
“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.
Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:
A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin
A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans
A clock that isn’t 24-hours
More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know
Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain
Multiple moons/no moon
Planetary rings
A northern lights effect, but near the equator
Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks
Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals
Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands
The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage
No concept of virginity or bastardry
More than 2 genders/no concept of gender
Monotheism, but not creationism
Gods that don’t look like people
Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats
Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot
Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom
“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls
A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language
A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)
I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.
Skip Google for Research
As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse. It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms
As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable. As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.
Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.
⁂
Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.
www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.
www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free
I was asked by a friend yesterday if I could offer basic tips about comic paneling. As it turns out, I have a lot to say on the matter! I tried breaking down the art of paneling using the principles of art and design, and I hope it helps you out!
EDIT: uh uh there are a lot of people reblogging this, so i figure i may as well append this now while i can lol
This whole thing was very much cranked out in a few hours so I had a visual to talk about with a friend! If this gives you a base understanding of paneling, that's awesome! Continue to pull in studies from the comics you see and what other artists do well and don't do well! You can tell paneling is doing well when the action is flowing around in its intended reading format.
Here's the link to the globalcomix article from which I pulled the images about panel staggering! Someone sent in a reblog that it wasn't totally clear that the 7th slide mostly covers what NOT to do in regards to staggering, and that is my mistake!
I saw in a tag that someone was surprised I used MamaYuyu too, and I don't blame them lol. If I had given myself more than a couple hours maybe I would have added something else on, I just really admire MamaYuyu's paneling personally.
uh uh, final append: I am by no means a renowned master of paneling, so if you find anything off base here, by all means, counter it with your own knowledge and ways you can build upon from here! Art is always a sum knowledge of everything we find. 💪
i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.
there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.
anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.
A Better World - create an alternate history timeline
Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game
Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet
Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games
Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones
Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy
ZenGM - simulate sports
Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi
IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)
Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface
The Cafe & Diner - mystery game
The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game
Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions
Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game
Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game
Miniconomy - player driven economy game
Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes
BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators
Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil
Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.
if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.
play in this space with me
Writing tool for your fight scenes.
I finally took the time to photograph my vintage dip pen nib collection, and I need to share with you all how wonderful and diverse their designs are.
These two are my favorite. Just look at them! One of them is named Gorille and the other Mephisto, but to me they're little pumpkins.
And of course you gotta love the Pinocchio nib. You get to write with the nose of a tiny guy! Just not something you get to do anymore.
i think one of the reasons i get mildly annoyed about worldbuilding threads that are 200 tweets of why you should care about where blue dye comes from in your world before saying someone is wearing blue is that so few of them go up to the second level of "and that should impact your characters somehow" - i don't care that blue dye comes from pressing berries that only grow in one kingdom a thousand miles away if people are casually wearing blue
a list of 100+ buildings to put in your fantasy town
academy
adventurer's guild
alchemist
apiary
apothecary
aquarium
armory
art gallery
bakery
bank
barber
barracks
bathhouse
blacksmith
boathouse
book store
bookbinder
botanical garden
brothel
butcher
carpenter
cartographer
casino
castle
cobbler
coffee shop
council chamber
court house
crypt for the noble family
dentist
distillery
docks
dovecot
dyer
embassy
farmer's market
fighting pit
fishmonger
fortune teller
gallows
gatehouse
general store
graveyard
greenhouses
guard post
guildhall
gymnasium
haberdashery
haunted house
hedge maze
herbalist
hospice
hospital
house for sale
inn
jail
jeweller
kindergarten
leatherworker
library
locksmith
mail courier
manor house
market
mayor's house
monastery
morgue
museum
music shop
observatory
orchard
orphanage
outhouse
paper maker
pawnshop
pet shop
potion shop
potter
printmaker
quest board
residence
restricted zone
sawmill
school
scribe
sewer entrance
sheriff's office
shrine
silversmith
spa
speakeasy
spice merchant
sports stadium
stables
street market
tailor
tannery
tavern
tax collector
tea house
temple
textile shop
theatre
thieves guild
thrift store
tinker's workshop
town crier post
town square
townhall
toy store
trinket shop
warehouse
watchtower
water mill
weaver
well
windmill
wishing well
wizard tower
Okay so it was a long time coming but I'm probably putting this account into the grave I dug for it two years ago. Still will be liking posts but everything else will be relegated to a different blog.
I will still post Elvaria stuff from time to time, but it will be on my general stuff account (@ilisteria).
Why won't tumblr just let me change my primary blog
its official: tumblr is selling our data to Midjourney
we'd been hearing rumors about this for a bit but now its open and out there. some details from this article
it goes without saying, but if @staff goes through with this its going to be an utter shitshow and im all but certain the website will not survive it.
Should've expected no less from an Elon Musk fanboy. Fucking disgusting.
We already have a severe bot problem on the internet that the CEO of Tumblr was complaining about, this shit will only make it worse and lead to dead internet theory becoming true.
Hi, Tumblr. It’s Tumblr. We’re working on some things that we want to share with you.
AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.
Here are the important details:
We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner.
We want to represent all of you on Tumblr and ensure that protections are in place for how your content is used. We are committed to making sure our partners respect those decisions.
To opt out of sharing your public blogs’ content with third parties, visit each of your public blogs’ blog settings via the web interface and toggle on the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.
For instructions on how to opt out using the latest version of the app, please visit this Help Center doc.
Please note: If you’ve already chosen to discourage search crawling of your blog in your settings, we’ve automatically enabled the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.
If you have concerns, please read through the Help Center doc linked above and contact us via Support if you still have questions.
Unfortunately for me, carrd did not let me make my own portfolio site because of the 50-asset limit. Fortunately for you guys, I have about 29 short stories planned and some rewrites, so maybe this account will come back to life but that highly depends on my life and motivation.
I'll likely also be posting on Ao3 when my account is approved. I'll make an update post with my username when that happens.
Don't know if anyone will see this, but if you previously followed me, thanks for sticking around :)
My taglists are pretty much dead in the water now and I don't want people randomly seeing pings after a year of silence, so if you'd like to join, please DM me.
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.
Proper post scheduled to 12:30 PM EST, see you guys :)
From an actual poet: "In the middle of life,
death comes to take your measurements.
The visit is forgotten and life goes on. But the suit
is being sewn on the sly." - Black Postcards by Tomas Transtromer From my own work(look I saw a comment asking about self-written poems so I thought I'd include my own):
"Within the gaps of my fingers,
Are inkstains ingrained in my skin,
Blemishes of black and blue that never washed off,
Grasping at the strings of fate I cannot see." - Inventory by me
hey reblog this with a piece of your favorite poem, please
Fandom Problem # 4074
The following two opinions can and should coexist:
"No one owes a fanartist/fanfic author/other fancontent creator comments/reblogs."
AND
"If no one leaves positive comments/reblogs on fanart/fanfic/other fancontent, they shouldn't be surprised if the fanartist/fanfic author/other fancontent creator slows their updates or even stops publishing content all together."
And yes, the phrase "positive comments" is important here. If the only comments are flames or demands for more content without otherwise complimenting the fancontent, they'll do the same amount of good as zero comments, if not worse.
Side Note To Fan Fic Authors
Here’s the thing.
I read a lot of scripts. A lot. From professionals to aspiring writers to complete newbies. Features and pilots. Specs and treatments.
And 8 times out of 10 the fan fic that I’ve read over the last, oh, 15 years is leagues better than this stuff. It’s more inspired. It’s more compelling. It’s genre bending and creative and heartfelt. It’s well-paced and intense and funny and sexy and meaningful. It’s smart and thoughtful and good. It’s novel-quality. Better than, sometimes.
Rare is the script I don’t want to put down, but how often have we stayed up until 3am to get to the last chapter of a 100k fic? And it’s not even a fan fic author’s day job. This is what they do on the side. In their spare time. For free.
So my point is, fan fic authors, you’re good. You’re good writers and great storytellers. I know it doesn’t always feel like it, especially if you’re one of the authors who’s not a BNF and doesn’t get the notes/hits that a few do. And because some people still view fic as “not real writing.” You guys know the shit that gets made into movies. You’re better than that. So be better than that. If writing is what you think want to do, then just know you’re already doing it. You’ve already started.
And you’re more talented than you might think.
I’d best be seeing that anti JKR energy for this twilight show too bc Smeyer continuing to profit off the Quileute tribe is not cute
Why do the bots have realistic usernames now, I've had to ask two people if they were bots or not(out of averaging 5 to 6 bot follows a day in this past week) and they were also bots
Examples of Jivankira Elthir clothing
Despite the Urthalisan refugees having joined the population of Jivankira Elthir during the Age of Shadows and have since become physically indistinguishable, part of Kavathanar known as The Crescent, which is the inner side of the Dinhrang Mountains, still is majority inhabited by descendants of these survivors.
Though they go by the name Jivankira Elthir, they've kept some of the Urthalisan culture to this day and continue to create clothing and buildings in a similar style, but of course with some changes due to influence from native Jivankiran culture and drift over time.
Compared to real world cultures in history, the Urthalisan descendants follow a Le dynasty Vietnamese style, and native Jivankira Either follow a middle Egyptian style.
No post this weekend unless someone wants to suggest a topic, my mind is blank right now lmao
“Your art isn’t valued by the number of notes you get” okay but. If you spent 6 hours baking a cake for a party, but no one at the party eats your cake, it’s still disappointing.
Images only, link to original Twitter at the bottom of post.
Full🧵 here:
Universal Tales- Recounting of the Helix, From the Words of Avaas(Altersae)
He of Entropy, of Sentience, and the creator of the Laws of Order. The catalyst to the creation of new Existences from inertia, from the nothingness of Nix.
My kin have long forgotten of Ulym, our forefather whose birth sparked the very first Existence. From it formed the concepts of a flow of time from which would mark the birth and death of universes and ends of cycles, a stabilized space for astral bodies to form upon, alternate universes and countless dimensions where life could be born, and of course, the essence of what is 'nothingness'.
With his birth did Nix first appear as the embodiment of the inertia before Ulym's entropy, then I as the embodiment of a universe branching into countless others, then Tilisnet as the embodiment of a Cycle taking motion, and ending with Seclir as the embodiment of a plane for creation.
When life first began to form in the very first Cycle, he gained twenty one strange 'eyes' that circled behind him, each of them starting closed.
The strange mortals foretold that when the day came where all of these 'eyes' would open, we would be obliterated and our existences reset to the time before even Ulym was born, an event that would come to be known as the Severance Unto Nihility.
We had all assumed it was nonsense, and as the many cycles passed, we simply watched as each 'eye' opened, paying no need and noticing no significant issues out of the norm.
By the ten thousand eight hundred seventh Cycle, though, nineteen 'eyes' had opened and Seclir would be the first to declare that the Existence of that Cycle had become unstable. Tilisnet would also take notice, and I myself saw as the space between universes and dimensions would shift and shatter with increasing frequency.
Ulym himself was becoming increasingly unstable as he began to cause excessive entropy, but he tried to assure us that this would be temporary and the next Cycle would return to how they were in the past.
When the next Cycle was born, it was not normal as we had thought it would be. The various worlds would shatter against each other and the space in between them unfurled and unraveled violently, the instability caused by this rippling across all of the Existence. Time would begin to fold onto itself and trap many lives into unbreakable loops until they went mad, and I bore witness to entire realms collapsing onto each other and universes locked from travel due to the instability causing all laws to disintegrate into utter chaos. Nothingness would bleed into the Existence and undo all the efforts of Tilisnet and Seclir, and neither Nix nor I could do more than observe how the uncontrolled entropy ravaged the living and metaphysical into nonexistence.
Ulym himself had not improved and had trapped himself into one of the locked universes, uttering complete madness as the 'pupils' of the 'eyes' would dart and glare into various dimensions and stare into my very being every time I had glimpsed into the locked universes. The time of the opening of the twentieth 'eye' was nigh, and we could not predict when the twenty first would open and bring forth the Severance Unto Nihility.
Tilisnet, Seclir, Nix, and I could no longer manage the damage uncontrolled entropy caused, and so we had resolved to take action against Ulym directly, something we had never conceived would ever occur.
By the time we had created our plan, more than half of the Existence was destroyed or irreversibly warped into unrecognizability.
Seclir and I would forcefully merge the locked universes and twist the remains of collapsed dimensions to create a 'sprout' that we tasked Tilisnet and Nix to 'plant' at the very start of the first Cycle, and this sprout would be further twisted by Tilisnet to create the beginning of the Helix of Undoing.
This 'seed' would be our final hope before the twentieth eye fully opened, the catalyst to create the direct opposite of the Laws of Order where time flowed backwards among many other strange Laws. This would become the essence of the Helix, where ends would come before beginnings and reality is no longer separate from the imaginary or unfathomable; where death comes before life and all things would be created before a nothingness could be born.
Whatever we could fathom in our Cycles would not apply in this parallel to the Laws of Order, and we pleaded to our very essence that Ulym would not break through the Helix of Undoing.
As many Cycles passed since the sealing of Ulym, the mantle of the concept of Entropy has been passed to myself among my duties as the Watcher, though Seclir has long forgotten why I had assumed this role, and Tilisnet, who is the only other that remembers, has sealed himself away in the in-betweens of the High Realms since his Realm was destroyed.
Nix holds great malice towards us as he believes we had abandoned him, but he too has forgotten Ulym.
It is unlikely that Ulym will ever be unsealed, and by the time the Laws of Order undo themselves in a Cycle far from even my own perception, the Helix of Undoing will have run its course and the 'eyes' of Ulym will be closed once more.
This hope and the Helix are the sole things that grant me the strength to continue my duties...But I fear that when the day comes where the Laws of Order and the Helix of Undoing meet at the Point of creation and undoing, Ulym's and my kin and I's roles will be reversed, and we will be sealed in his steed as we, too, go mad.
May Ulym never again see the light of creation in the Laws of Order.
--------------------
Taglist for writing-
@aneci
If anyone else would like to join the taglist, feel free to DM me or send in an ask! I will also have a separate taglist for art posts.
Elvarian Tales- Delkhiir's Worthy
In a cave sunk by time once lived a being who ascended five times.
Once upon a distant era, they were another elf from the remains of civilization, one of the many that were born in a time when the world was ravaged by volatile power and shrouded by a false night.
The first time they ascended, they received a core of stars that shone as a sun would in the ashen skies and ruins of empires.
The second time they ascended, they received a core of fire that scorched the ground they landed upon, leaving only scorching lava and a flaming wasteland.
The third time they ascended, they received a core of water that caused the tides to swell and ferry a small fleet to land.
The fourth time they ascended, they received a core of wind that swept land into the skies and seas and joined together stray islands.
The fifth time they ascended, they received a core of nature that brought forth seeds of goodwill for the new kingdoms to attain prosperity.
For an elf to survive not one but five ascensions allowed them the respect of the otherworldly elementals, and thus they were given a choice never before afforded to a mortal- to become a Potentate and see the Elemental Planes with mortal eyes but only if they forfeit the mortal realms, or to remain as a mortal soul but at the cost of renouncing their existence when the power of their cores fade. They chose to remain among the elves and life, desiring a death on their own terms and to leave mortal disciples before they passed.
The elementals seemed to understand their choice and would grant the ascender two gifts- to shift time as many times as they had cores, and a name that befit the first mortal deemed worthy by them. The ascender would receive the new name of Delkhiir, "valiant" in their strange language.
Delkhiir would meditate in a cave upon an island, emanating faint traces of elemental energy through the corners of the world in order to seek those with the sensitivity to sense them. Of the repopulating world freed from artificial night, 25 would come before Delkhiir, some that followed through strange crystals that guided them to the island, some that came of their own merit, some that stumbled upon the island by mere chance.
Of those 25, 13 would lie and 12 were sincere.
The 13 that lied were struck down with a ray of pure starlight for the audacity to lie in the face of an ascender. Of the 12 that spoke the truth, Delkhiir would choose four to be their disciples, the rest swearing an oath of secrecy and turned away kindly.
These disciples would take on pseudonyms drawn from syllables of the elemental language, the first, a Flaernan, taking the name of "Vaj", the second, a Floernian, taking the name of "Lemn", the third, an Avianaen, taking the name of "Nin", and the fourth, a Dalirnan, taking the name of "Kor".
The first disciple, though he spoke the truth before Delkhiir, had intentions far from pure. He desired the world and perhaps more, and when he received the core of fire he scorched many in war. When he died, he died as an arrogant fool- the face of a man who knew only greed and bloodlust still plastered upon his face when the lightning struck. He left a legacy of terror and slaughter, his existence scorned by the elementals. His name was Derevysk-Vajkarr, and then he became little more than ash.
The second disciple was oblivious but only had well-wishes for the world, diffing from the first in his insidious nature. She wished no more than for the world to be given a brighter future and thus was she sent to the time of Floernia's birth with the core of water to nurture. She was overwhelmed by the power she failed to understand, and soon was she misguided and created rains that flooded coasts and raised tides. In these tides did she sink below, consumed by great sorrow. She left a legacy of failure and regrets, her existence pitied by the elementals. Her name was Adolia-Lemniin, and then she became little more than sea foam.
The third disciple was most similar to Delkhiir in intention- he too wished to take on disciples and grant them the power to alter the course of the world, but also worthy of having people to call his own through ascension. He would be sent to a time only a few millennia before with the core of air, and three would become four as he became the fourth of a kingdom's Lords. He fell to the same covetous desire of the first disciple and betrayed his ascender brothers, their kingdom spiraling into war with the deaths of their sires. When he died, he did so in shame as the remains of his brothers struck him true. He left a legacy of betrayal and ruin, his existence forgotten by the elementals. His name was Thervos-Aninaar, then Thiroaven, and then he became little more than a breeze.
The fourth and final disciple was unambitious in terms of fostering or conquering- Kor desired little more than to learn and understand what was beyond the lands and seas to wander. They would live upon the island and learn of the age lost in shadow and ideals of the elementals, declining to see the past or future in order to learn all of the present outside of the world. Delkhiir thought Kor to be strange, but there were not unwelcome to a life as a teacher rather than a master, deeming it better than to witness their fourth core be used for the domination or destruction of people. Delkhiir would pass on as much of their knowledge as they could, both tales of the past and tales of the Elemental Planes, but they knew their memory was failing as time wore away at their existence and there was only so much they could still recall.
Delkhiir once had five cores sustaining their existence, and now they had two, mortality looming over them. But they did not say this to their fourth disciple, only wishing for Kor to attain some form of happiness after seeing the folly of the preceding disciples.
The first part of Delkhiir to fail was their legs, and they could not be moved from the position of the lotus. They smiled and told Kor not to worry, but Kor was not so unlearned that they could be fooled by Delkhiir's reassurances.
Kor knew they lacked the power to slow the progression of Delkhiir's gradual descension, so they chose instead to lessen Delkhiir's grieving of their loss in the only way they could.
In the cave, where Delkhiir sat was only able to see the very top of the opening but was otherwise in darkness from sunset to sunrise. Before their legs failed, Delkhiir often would arise to view the passage of the celestial bodies and absorb traces of stellar energy, but now they could not, and it seemed to slightly quicken time's effects on their body.
Kor would chisel away at the entrance of the cave and carve openings into the sides to allow light to reach Delkhiir, and they would also scour the world for the shedding and cores of half-elemental beasts to imbue into crystals to bring light and energy into the cave.
Without the other 3 cores, Delkhiir could not be sustained on any energies save for stellar and nature, and both were rare to find from willing beings or in natural occurrence.
Once, Kor stumbled into the cave suffering from fatal injuries, as they had tried to steal a celestial artifact from the vault of a kingdom and were caught and nearly executed. Delkhiir felt great sorrow for allowing Kor to end up in this state, as Kor had spent their youth with Delkhiir instead of seeking happiness in the prime of their life, and so Delkhiir would grant the core of nature to them.
Kor would awake from a coma after the acceptance of the core and was to interrogate Delkhiir on why they had chosen to sacrifice one of the few things sustaining them for a mortal like themselves, only to find that Delkhiir was unmoving and did not draw a single breath.
Though Delkhiir was not to die yet, they had chosen to fall into stasis for whenever the absolute last being considered worthy would come before them, both to preserve their own existence for as long as what was still possible and also to relieve Kor of the burden they had put upon them.
The core of nature was small and fragile after being worn down by many millennia of existence, and Kor would perish after only a century, finding that their only happiness was as the student of Delkhiir. They did not leave a legacy to the rest of elvenkind, but their passing was mourned by the elementals that still remembered Delkhiir. Their name was Koriinaan, "gift" in the language of the elementals, and then they were little more than a single budding flower on the island.
When the island inevitably was consumed by the tides, no fifth disciple was ever able to receive the core of stars. With time, the core would finally fail, and so Delkhiir would cease to exist.
Those that observed the stars witnessed five stars blink out of existence on the day Delkhiir died, but they would never know why nor the story of the four tragedies that came before. By mere coincidence, these stars were named Vana, Lanae, Noien, Kaio, and Delhir, and there was no one left that could grieve for these stars.
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