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touchtranscendslanguage · 11 months

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hello!! i’m a newcomer but i just wanted to say that your series is so friggen amazing <3 i fancy myself some self-care snakebois and anxiety-ridden driderbois. though roman might actually kill me and i’m terrified of him having the ability to make people fall out of love. what a horrifying thought kxjsjdheh??? anyway!!! i have some questions regarding magic because magic yay worldbuilding <3 my bad if some of these have been asked! as i said, i’m a newcomer aha;;

so if taking away a witches magic makes them no longer a witch, can an old enough witch just die on the spot, or are they biologically however old they were physically (like how the royal fam stopped at around 30) and begin aging at a rate normal for their species? if taking away a witches magic makes them no longer a witch, does giving someone magic make them a witch? and if so, are they then immortal or age slower than previously? are any species (that we know of so far) unable to naturally be witches, and what happens if they’re *given* magic without biologically being able to have it? can a person have TOO much magic? what species do we know of so far and are any of them/will any of them be relevant? i want virgil to be besties with the waitstaff again :((( (not a question but it needed to be said). was sleep messing with virgil’s circadian rhythm? probably not but i just wanted to confirm because he’s a vindictive little shit who totally would 👀

will sleep and virge be spider besties now?,,,,pls i need little weave-and-relieve sessions between the two where they just chill and rant n maybe do each others nails or share weaving tips :))) can virgil croquet or sew or knit or something? because he’d love, probably. it’s great for anxiety (probably, i’m so bad at it i wouldn’t know LOL)

i. am going to cut myself off here before it gets too long. have a good day! <3

- OnlyRoomForHope (would be unanon but i can’t be bothered logging in on right account lmaoo)

@onlyroomforhope

Thank you and welcome! I'm so happy to have you here in my own tiny corner of the fandom! Yeah, we love our self-care snake and anxious spider here. Also, wow, ya'll really latched onto that fact about Roman. As long as Virgil and Janus keep their protections up around him they'll be fine :)

A lot of good questions here and for the most part it looks like they haven't been answered before! This is exciting! *crackles knuckles* Let's dive in, shall we?

So if a witch loses their magic and therefore their immortality they don't just drop dead. Their body is still physically the age it was when they stopped aging, they just begin to age again. This applies to humans, fae are already immortal on their own their immortality just works a bit differently.

Giving someone magic does make them a witch. I think I've mentioned it before, but Remy wasn't born a witch, he got his magic from King Thomas. Gaining his own magic made him a witch and came with all of the perks of being one including immortality. Remy is indistinguishable from any other witch.

Thus far I've only put a lot of thought into humans and fae being witches, but I'd say most highly intelligent sentient species can have witches. Especially the humanoid or partially humanoid ones. So most monsters such as naga, driders, merepeople, centaurs, and vampires can all be witches. Dragons, kelpies, harpies, and sirens cannot.

it's also important to note that I said highly intelligent sentient species. That means beasts are not included. So there are no pheonix, unicorn, bear of bears, or bassilisk witches.

Could someone give a beast or non-witch monster witch magic? Yes. Chaos would happen.

No, a person couldn't have too much magic. Exibit A: Thomas. King Thomas has a ridiculous amount of magic. Should he have that much magic? Absolutely not. That shouldn't be allowed. But, hey, I didn't make the rules (yes I did) and it is what it is.

Now, if you're asking if a lot magic can have negative side effects then yes, it can potentially be overwhelming. If King Thomas got all of his magic at once it would have taken a serious toll on him and at one point he did aquire too much at once and it did take a toll. That was a the very beginning of Thomas's reign and he depended on Nico a lot to hide it. After an adjustment period he was fine, though. After that he learned to take magic gradually, one or two witches at a time with breaks in between.

Okay, so so far in the series we know of humans (obviously), fae, driders, and naga. We also know that fae are split into seelie and unseelie. Only humans and seelie are going to play major rolls in the series. As tempted as I am to play around with the many subcatagories of fae and the other species, I'm trying to keep this as simple as I can. We may see them play minor roles as in individual characters but that's it.

That being said, I am planning the brief appearance of a third major species.

Now, there are many minor species of monsters but those all defer to either the seelie or unseelie making fae a major species. Humans are also a major species. The third major species that is indepented of and can stand toe-to-toe with fae and humans is spirits. Spirits will barely appear in the series so I don't plan on doing a lot of wolrd building for them.

So all in all, only humans and fae will really be relevant.

I want Virgil to be friends with the staff again, too ;_;

Remy totally would mess with Virgil's sleep, however he was on Earth up until the day he was introduced to Virgil, so no, he didn't have anything to do with Virgil's sleeping problems.

Remy are Virgil are going to be besties! I am firmly team Those Two Getting Along. They are my babies and I love them, they must at least be friends. There will be classic sleep overs and they will get up to shananagins, so stay tuned for that.

Virgil can weave and sew. He's okay at it. he does it more for stress relief than to be good.

#ttl #touch transcends language #ask #bluewic answers #magic #world building #character info #history #random facts

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ezra-iolite · 1 year

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Jokani Lore: Biology of a Dragonkin

Hopefully I'll be able to make some art to accompany this post in the future, but for now... I felt it was time I did some worldbuilding and expand on how a Dragonkin grows up and becomes what ya'll know them as.

Courtship and Embracing the Beast

The birds and the bees for a Dragonkin are luckily as simple and familiar as a human's, due to the species being entirely half-human. Genetics wise, a human and a Dragonkin couple are just as likely to have a Dragonkin child as two of the same species are... Which is why the royal family have never been overly fussy in who bears the next heir to the throne, beyond merely being someone worthy enough to become consort in mind and body, and is able to bear the barrage of magical influence to ensure said heir is born strong and bearing the Sun Blessed gene.

However, while a human experiences their fertility cycle via menstruation in only the women of the species or those who bear uteruses, a Dragonkin of any sex or gender experiences the same type of fertility cycle, a week long event known as a Red Heat. Once a month, for a full seven days, sometimes eight or nine counting on the individual Dragonkin, their inner beast will slowly come out and drive the Dragonkin feral in its demands for hunting prey and finding a mate. Their human instincts will weaken by the second day, and the third will be their hardest to resist the call of the beast within. They do not bleed like menstruating humans do, but it is noted that male Dragonkin are more territorial and far more easily overcome by "the beast" mindset, while females are much more calmer in nature but often crave more raw meat than the males do.

After all.... Dragonkin are the apex predators to humans.

(Asya is the best example of this... As before she transitioned, she was much more territorial and started fights in a feral manner during the last week of every month, like a lone wolf defending his territory and snapping at all he perceived as a threat. But the moment Asya started to take her hormone replacement potions, she became much more calmer and the fights stopped entirely by her second month of taking the potions... at the cost of her craving human meat every month.)

Therefore, once a month, the Dragonkin population all across Joka Ardhi will begin preparations for a secluded event known only as a Red Camp week. Here, the Dragonkin can escape their human-made expectations of socially adequate behavior and stay within large campsites, composed entirely of massive red tents far beyond the boarders of every city, village and town, with each massive tent containing a large plush bed appearing more like nests than the standard and human-made framed beds, and deep pools of cold water are dug into the sand and lined with terracotta clay to keep the water in. These Red Camps are made strictly for the Dragonkin species as a whole, while the humans happily let their half-fauna brethren leave to tend to their natural instincts, as they always have since the days when the two races first became one civilization.

At this camp, the Dragonkin are allowed to let loose and embrace their beast side without needing to conform to societal expectations for the safety of their more fragile human kin. Here, they can hunt like wild predators without the need for steeds or weapons, or even duel in playful territory battles and no longer worry about their strength. Meanwhile, the women of the species, when they do not have the energy to hunt or battle, can relax and embrace their inner beast's needs with their fellow feral Dragonkin, cooling off their overheating bodies in the pools and drying off by sunbathing in the hot afternoons.

All this is vital to the traditions and culture of the Dragonkin, to allow them to embrace rather than shun or hide their animal half, and more often than not, it is here at these camps that a great many Dragonkin who started their first heats are trained to hone their claws and learn about their culture at the feasts every night of the week. Once the week is over, the camps are packed up, the pools filled up, and the satisfied Dragonkin return to society, bringing plenty of fresh meat to sell or preserve as a bonus.

But, when a Red Week doesn't result in a newfound couple or a baby on the way, a Dragonkin pair will court the traditional human way, mostly by wearing vibrant clothes in each other's family's colour and gifting their partner meaningful trinkets and extravagant meals full of savory meats. Once they've settled and are happy together as a couple, it is an old Jokani tradition for one of the lovers, mostly the male but gender does not matter anymore for this tradition, to propose to their partner by gifting their parents a cow as a form of dowry, due to how vital cattle are as food and income in the wasteland. But because not everyone can house cattle in their home, most urban dwelling Jokani today will often gift cow themed items, such as a golden or carved statuette, a woven tapestry or carpet, a painting, anything they can craft to be considered valuable or an expensive item with a cow on it will be how one can propose to their lover, before they eventually give a ring or earring of gold to mark them as their betrothed.

Reproduction

Whether a female Dragonkin becomes pregnant during her monthly visit at her local Red Camp, or with her partner outside out her usual fertile window, she will usually start to show signs of her pregnancy roughly 18 days after conception. This is usually seen through the new mother experiencing morning sickness symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, bloating, headaches and hip stiffness, but after the first month of pregnancy, she will then go through ten weeks of "magic sickness", the time period when the fetus takes both the nutrients and the magic from within its mother's body.

During this time period of early development, the new mother will experience wild bouts of magical surges, often in the form of fire hiccups, heartburn that shows up as glowing veins around her chest and neck, random surges and drops in her magic that hinders her ability to use her fire, which all eventually end at the tenth week or so with a heavy wave of fatigue and exhaustion, as the fetus then develops its own magical source within its heart and the mother rests to recover her magic levels. From then on, the fetus will only require normal food and nutrient sustenance for the rest of the 10 month gestation. When the baby is ready to be born, the Dragonkin mother will give birth to live young rather than in an egg.

However, because of the standard Jokani female body structure being lithe and skinny, to help them survive the constant heat and vast distance they travel in said heat, with the only natural aid being the bigger size/height inherited from Dragonkin blood, many mothers amongst humans and Dragonkin prefer to give birth in water rather than on a bed or with the help of a witch doctor, or more traditionally a Lunar Priestess of Ma' Mwezi. This is mainly due to the fact that the Jokani don't have hospitals, but rather they are visited by the hundreds of witch doctors housed in a Medi' Hut found in every city, village or town, who are all trained in both medical and magical practice to heal any and all injuries and ailments.

But it is massively preferred amongst all Jokani women, human and Dragonkin alike, to visit the Temple of Ma' Mwezi in the east shoreline region to give birth in the sacred lunar pools of the temple, or if the baby comes early, to hire a Lunar Priestess to bring water with them from the pools blessed by the moon goddess Ma' Mwezi herself. This is why at least seven Priestesses are usually found working in a small local temple in every city and large village, to ensure the birth can be blessed and performed in a pool at home, if the mother cannot make it to the main Ma' Mwezi temple.

Growing of the Dragon Traits

When a Dragonkin is born, no matter their parentage, the newborn will be almost perfectly human in appearance and biology. However, the key differences that mark them as a Dragonkin will be the vibrant coloration on their hands and feet, a tiny tail stump of the same colour, and stubby horns on their head. Once they finally open their eyes, they will appear blue like every human baby usually does, but theirs will immediately reveal their dragon slit irises. These differences are known as Dragon Traits, and the colour of a baby Dragonkin's traits are always based upon the colours of their parents. If one is human, the colour of their magic will be their dominant gene for the scale colour of their child, for even if they don't use said magic, a Jokani always has magic in their veins. But to the Dragonkin, some scale colours are more dominant than others, like brown eyes or hair in a white human.

There's been no research yet into what colours are considered the dominant carrier genes, simply because there are too many in the colour spectrum seen amongst the Opal species. However, the firstborn child of a Dragonkin will usually bear the father's colour with a lighter or darker hue based on the mother's. For example, a bright green Dragonkin father with an orange, human-fire mage mother will create a forest green Dragonkin firstborn, an orange-rust coloured second-born, and then a green hued third child, and then repeating in that pattern of green-orange-green with every child they bear.

As a baby Dragonkin grows, their body will begin to change, but even more so when they reach puberty. Starting off, their first change occurs when they learn to stand on their own. Their legs will begin to turn from chunky baby legs befitting of a human infant into digitigrade legs. Their knees will become more pronounced the more they use their legs to walk with, and as they lose their baby fat their animalistic shape will begin to appear as they grow bigger and taller. As they start to grow more confident in their stride, they'll begin to develop the habit of walking on their toes that will soon become their claws (or paws in a Ruby Dragonkin's case), and as they reach their toddler years and begin to play and run, they'll start to learn how to walk on all fours like a beast as they chase their toys, their own tails or their friends and climb like kittens on furniture and walls. The switch between walking on all fours and on two legs will slowly occur as they start to mimic their parents, while their tails and horns start to show as they learn how to balance on their now fully formed legs using their tails.

... It should be noted here that a Dragonkin's Dragon Traits have no scales at this age. They are merely coloured flesh and very soft. They will only gain their scales when they're eleven years old, in the form of acne that fade to become scales. These waves of acne will continue to develop rapidly for a year or two, causing annoying bouts of itchiness for the child, until they finally gain their fully scaled tails, hands and feet (but not the soles or palms), as well as lines of them along their cheekbones and shoulders. Overarmouring is the common condition where the scale-acne continues outside the main areas where scales are supposed to grow, including the palms, neck, chest, anywhere on wide areas of skin that sweats the most. It is a more painful type of itchiness that usually occurs when a teenager produces too much of the body oil that forms the acne that develops into scales. The only way to cure it is with a cold herbal bath that dries the skin entirely and to pluck the rogue scales out. It is usually aged out or cured after a month of weekly herbal baths, but in some Dragonkin with more humans in their family, it is almost a lifelong condition.

By age ten, their tails are now long and bear fluffy tips, while their horns are two rings in length and are now fully peeking out of their hair. Their shape, however, are still blunt, for in two more years they will split or harden into points and grow longer to become their mature shape that's a combination of their parents or lone Dragonkin parent. As they grow into their early teens, their fire magic will begin to show alongside their first signs of human puberty. And by sixteen, their Dragon Traits will be fully developed while their body finishes developing and growing in size, at least until they reach twenty-one or twenty-five years of age.

Their fourteenth year is when they begin training their magic and skills as they prepare for their rite of passage into adulthood, for it is here that their magic and physical prowess will waver in strength as they finds their limit within the child's body. Plenty of accidents with fire and broken items occur here, which is why the architecture of the bigger cities and towns of Joka Ardhi are made up entirely of sandstone, and why most Dragonkin designed clothing are woven with fireproof sunstone or aquamarine dust in the very fibers of the fabric... for only Red Flames can truly burn them.

Lifespan of a Dragonkin

A Dragonkin will only be considered an adult once they reach twenty-five years of age, as everything inside and out has finally stopped developing. When they celebrate this birthday, the now fully mature Dragonkin will be celebrating not just the start of their adult life... but the death of their mortal side. For it is at this stage that they will begin to age more slowly, as their body will only start to show signs of aging at all after they turn two hundred years old, with their lifespan reaching well past five hundred years. They are, however, still just as susceptible to the same diseases and illnesses as any other human.

But, there is a specific way a Dragonkin can die that is unique only to them, due to the massive danger it brings. Because their source of magic is in their heart, in the form of a fluid sack of napalm-like liquid fire and Sun Dust surrounding the organ, stabbing a Dragonkin directly in the heart will cause more than just their slow and painful death...

It will explode in a nuke-level combustion the moment the knife is pulled out and the flames that trickle out of opened fluid sack is exposed to oxygen, it will spark an explosion so massive that one Dragonkin's exposed heart-fire can destroy an entire city and leave behind a soot and ash covered ruin in a crater and no survivors. THIS is why it is taught to every warrior, man, woman and child alike to never stab a Dragonkin in the heart... And instead aim for the other side of the chest, should they need to do combat.

Inherited Fire Magic

All Dragonkin can wield fire, for it is in their very nature as the children of dragons to do so. However, the species are split in two due to the Ruby Dragonkin being the only ones who can wield natural or "Wild Fire", while Opal Dragonkin can wield fire of every colour of the rainbow but it will never burn like the Wild Fire can. This fact is more easily summed up as "The Rubies burn wildly, the Opals create variety". As such, there are four types of Wild Fire magic, which a very select few human Fire Mages can wield but are only able to handle the weaker two variants.

The four types are, in the order of strongest to weakest, Red, Yellow, Orange and White.

Yellow and White flames are the only kinds of Wild Fire that can be wielded by an Opal Dragonkin born with that type fire in them and human mages. The other two are STRCITLY wielded by the Ruby species.

Red flames are the strongest, in the sense that they're the most dangerous form of magic due to how hot they can become. Amongst all the fire types, Red fire burns the hottest of them all, and everything from metal to stone cannot withstand its heat. Metal will instantly turn white and smelt under the blaze of a red flame, while stone will immediately start to crack if a constant stream of it is shot in one spot for more than a minute. Those who have red flames as their main type will always have a hot aura around them, as though their bodies are a source of heat rivaling the sun itself.

Yellow flames are the most common type of fire magic and magic in general for combat use. They are solid enough to hold heavy objects and burn them, but not as instantly as the red. They mostly appear as tendrils of fire or telekinesis given physical form, and when used as a stream of pure fire... It can punch through rock with enough force given from the breath, and with enough training to ensure its stability and strength to do this, they can most likely break any solid wall of any type with one punch. When compared to red flames, only yellow flames can break through rock with one hit, while red flames require a constant flow and a long breath or stamina level to break through it. In this case, it is easier to say that Yellow Flames are more solid and physically stronger than Red Flames, as Red Flames sacrifice their physical strength to become hotter than all other flames, and instead require constantly added pressure to gain physical strength anywhere near the peaked strength of Yellow Flames.

Orange flames are the easiest to mimic in magic, and as such are every Ruby Dragonkin's first type of fire they learn to control. It is the most natural and commonly found fire in nature, hence why it is so easy to control. When a Ruby Dragonkin is angry or defensive, they will usually always rely on the orange flames to protect them before switching to red or yellow. If a Dragonkin's main type of fire is Orange, then Yellow or Red fire will become much easier for them to control as they grow up and hone their skill.

White flames NEVER burn. They are the one source of fire magic that never destroys, and instead ONLY heal. When used by a Red or Yellow fire wielder, the White Flame is much harder for them to control due to how gentle and fragile it is, and generally how much weaker it is in force when compared to the other flames. But for an Orange Flame wielder, it is almost instinctually easy to wield the White Healing Flame. As such, it is very common to use amongst the Opal Dragonkin, especially amongst Sun Blessed human fire mages.

A Sun Blessed Ruby Dragonkin heir can wield all four, but one flame type will always be their dominant colour, just like the Opal species, while the rest are either their secondary or their weakest colour based on the strongest main one. For example, if a Ruby's main type of flame is the Red or Yellow one due to them relying on its physical strength for combat, then they will have very weak control over the White Healing Flame. The same goes if they prefer to heal than to fight, then the White will be their main type, but the Yellow or Red flame will then be even harder for them to control. But, if a Ruby trains to hone all four, even with them picking a main flame type, they can then use all four evenly... But one will always be their defining type, and it can sometimes take them an entire century to master all four flames.

#long read #infodump #I wrote this while sick... woo #pirateformers au #tigracespace

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a-gaggle-of-colors · 8 months

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Have I ever shared my for sale/trade/freebie folder? If not, here it be.

I've posted a bunch of old designs/characters I made in my early sprite making days as well as more recent escapades from boredom or possibly farragofiction. Ya'll are free to claim anybody in there. Just comment on the character or like let me know here.

#kat speaks #kat advertises #kat rambles

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theveryworstthing · 6 years

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some clothing and design stuff for rabbit wedding times.

i have been writing this post for a thousand years because it connected to other lore that i needed to write out and i got on a weird roll and my head hurts. i’m so sorry and this is only part one. this part is all about rabbit weddings today and what the ceremonies are like and this whole mess was prompted by this cute ask:

well friend, you’ll be pleased to know that rabbits and vultures get along well enough that their relationship should be fine to most rabbits. Vultures are gonna find it weird but we gotta wait for the vulture section.

now lets get on with the wedding stuff.

Rabbit Weddings Facts: regular rabbit weddings are group weddings that only happen on eight days of the year. A span of four days in the fall and a span of four days in the spring. If you miss the wedding days you gotta wait until next spring or fall. This isn’t that bad however. Many older rabbits say its lucky to miss your first chance at marriage, as your false newlywed time confuses jealous spirits that would otherwise flock to your happiness and cause trouble. Young people think this is probably a bs way of saying ‘take a little extra time to make sure your partner isn’t garbage before you think about going off your birth control’, but on the island you just don’t know what will get you got by an asshole monster so most are content to wait.

Rabbits do get married outside of of proper wedding days but usually only because they’re in a mixed marriage, they don’t know if their spouse is going to survive till then, or they’re eloping. Guards in super dangerous areas are also married in single couple off-season weddings just because they know they’ll be on duty during the actual wedding days. Those are always a little more rambunctious than regular weddings. Guards like to party.

Things like getting pregnant aren’t enough of a reason to get married right away. Rabbits don’t believe in shotgun weddings. They do however believe in shotgun divorces. If you’re gonna skip out on your kid or abandon your partner just because you aren’t married and you feel like you don’t have to be caring and responsible, the rest of the warren don’t want your triflin’ ass around anyway. Everyone’s got like eight siblings to help raise babies, they don’t need you.

Since the majority of rabbit weddings are group weddings, warrens and communities pull together to organize for the engaged couples. The rabbits on the island rarely have little to do with their own wedding arrangements, and in some areas it can even be seen as bad luck. This is supposed to be a chill day for the couples. Very few people find this level of party planning relaxing.

Rabbit weddings are reasonably low-key, but creative celebrations. There is an emphasis on the everyday joys, and while things like food and decorations will be put out with extra care, there are very few wedding specific additions to what really is a small four day festival. Each section of the island has slightly different traditions depending on threat level of outdoor celebrations, available regional food, and housing set-ups. For example, areas that have more single family/person burrows have a special separate underground hall or topside festival area set up as a kind of community center where things like weddings take place. Therefore, its not uncommon for tag team wrestling matches to occur between couples of different warrens in bouts of ‘friendly’ competition. Warrens, on the other hand, usually have their own courtyards and dining halls, so tag team wrestling only occurs on wedding days when a lot of people are getting hitched. And then its usually siblings who get into heated matches about who’s wife could beat up who’s husband.

Rabbits aren’t really against marrying not-rabbits, at least on paper. In practice some rabbits feel weird around mainlanders higher than working class unless they’re at least within spitting distance of wealthy, and a few old island born rabbits are straight up against dating hares because history bias. Vultures are weirdly acceptable. But honestly, rabbits don’t think that married couples need to be able to breed on account of all the extra babies lying around, so as long as all parties are of age, sapient, and consenting its usually okay with most people.

Poly marriages are a thing, they’re just not common.

Rabbit divorces are really quick. Sign some papers, scrub off your bonding sigil, and you’re set. Usually takes ten minutes, which is for the best just in case things turn ugly. Things are only weird if there’s business of kid stuff to sort out.

How A Rabbit Wedding Do: A traditional wedding, in island culture, is just supposed to be a really good normal day with a pinch of ceremony on top. This is because hopefully its the start of the many many happy normal days that the couple will have together. It might not be the best day you’ll ever have, and there are uncomfortable bits, and someone might cry on you/try to fight you, but everyone is coming together to be happy and hang out and tell embarrassing stories. Its supposed to be stress-free and fun.

Morning: The morning of, the couple walks to the festival area together. There are no rules against seeing the bride/groom/whatever beforehand as separation just seems to ramp up the stress when they finally do see each other. Couples dress to their comfort, sometimes showing up in their fanciest clothes, sometimes in pajamas. Most shoot for somewhere comfortably in the middle. All clothing is notably colorful and bright instead of the usual ‘outside’ camouflage wear. Part of the stress-free thing is that the entire area is heavily protected for the wedding days and dressing like a giant predator target is a kind of symbolic trust in your community to make sure you and your hypothetical future offspring won’t get ate while you try to have a nice time.

The ceremony starts when couples that arrive at the festival grounds are seated at blanketed breakfast areas set out by their families. Siblings and close friends being married on the same day are set up on connecting blankets. This is usually where the first bout of crying starts, as each of the engaged is presented with a light headscarf called a Clofour.

Clofours are dyed and decorated strips of fabric made by family and friends. Its kind of like a signed yearbook that you wear on your head. They’re usually covered with bright patterns, warm blessings, and playful insults which are read aloud by the couple and heckled by the other guests. You can put anything you want on them as long as it looks pretty and cohesive as a whole. Does this mean that people have been gifted Clofours that have ‘I Love You Asshole’ or ‘I Cherish Every Moment With You But You Still Own Me Five Coin’ painstakingly embroidered in beautiful lango script on the petal of a watercolor blossom before? You bet. Rabbits don’t stop being rabbits just because its wedding time.

Clofours are the only custom piece of wedding attire the couples bother with and is the equivalent of a wedding gown/wedding tux for rabbits. Once the couple is fitted in their Clofours and that one uncle stops crying, they don Meeting cloaks.

Meeting cloaks are used in all sorts of important ceremonies, and are usually passed around families for special occasions. They’re mat black on the outside and white or gold on the inside. They get their name from the minimalistic designs depicting the meeting of land/water and sky that cover them. Patterning and land/water/sky combinations vary between families and island regions, kind of like a loose coat of arms. Usually worn by those receiving accolades or at the head of events, meeting cloaks can be made for specific couples or occasions but its far more common to borrow one from a friend or use one your family already has. Especially for anything traditional like a wedding. You’re not even really supposed to wear one that hasn’t been worn before if you didn’t make it yourself, tailors often set aside a day to wear them around before giving a new cloak to a customer.

After the couple is dressed and fed, they head to a tent to get their Bonding Sigils done. Bonding sigils are basically like rabbit (and hare) wedding rings. Before the placing of sigils begins, Orchids separate the couple with heavy dividing curtains and urge them to air out any grievances or nervous feelings about the marriage and ask for advice. They should have talked all this out before hand of course, but some people need a quiet space and a trusted neutral ear to say what they really feel. Very rarely does this lead to a change of heart. No one really wants to walk out of that tent alone.

When a person is done with their talk, they sit down with a beautician and a local elder midwife to start the ceremony bit of the wedding. Large triangles of fur are shaved off of each of their wrists, and after thorough washing a mixture of henna and blackdoe fungus ink is applied in designs chosen by the couple. Designs are often traditional but can be custom if the couple brings a drawing of what they want. This can be genius or disaster, it depends. The beautician can usually spot who’s grandparents are gonna be cussing up a storm later and tries to sway them. Meanwhile, the midwife chants marriage blessings from a few island gods:

Haaah: God of relaxation after strain/release/safe havens/ self care/ self love. You ask him for safety in your life together and promise to treasure the worth of your partner and yourself. (also…you know…great sexy times if you’re into that)

Flaroti: God of yelling/the need to be known/connections with other people/communication. You ask her for the strength to speak up if something is wrong or right in your relationship. Sometimes you gotta work difficult things out in uncomfortable ways but you should also never be stingy with compliments and acknowledgment of your partner’s achievements. Additionally, realize when your comments are more hurtful than helpful and keep you mouth shut. There’s also some long bits about apologies and forgiveness and body language and secret codes hidden in the sound of a lovers sleeping breaths or the number of their eyelashes or the drops of blood that fall when they’re pricked by bramble thorns, but the midwife usually cuts these short for time.

And Gone: God of travel/separation/bravery/broken homes/missing people. You ask him for temporary separations that always bring you back together unharmed or permanent separations that are done painlessly and for the good of both of you.

After the blessings are done and the designs have dried enough so that they can’t be easily smudged, the Orchid escorts the couple out the tent. Their wrists are held up to waiting onlookers, and they watch their parents burst into tears again.

These designs will fade but take about a year to fully do so and married couples get their designs refreshed on anniversaries.

Midday (the bulk of the wedding): Then they do whatever.

Seriously, the whole middle of the wedding days are just couples going off and doing whatever they want without any responsibilities or major cares. Some treat it like a luxurious date day. Some invite friends along and party it up. Some split up and meet up later. Some disappear together and only show back up for the evening service where they are either subjected to lewd heckles or concerned whispers depending on how haunted their eyes look and where in the woods they wandered off to. A lot of people head to the graveyard with a local necromancer to give the good news to family who couldn’t make it. You’re not supposed to do any work but some do. Some just take a real good nap. The guards like the ones who nap, they don’t have to worry about them. I mean, sometimes they do? But those are rare and mostly involve having to go get their sigils touched up since their grip has probably smudged them.

The Evening: In the evening a closing ceremony is held. A large silver basin of scented water is set in the middle of the festival area. Salt or fresh water doesn’t matter on the island but mainland rabbits always use salt water as it doesn’t give the right reaction otherwise. A small bell sits beside it and the area is surrounded by colorful lanterns and flowers. Everyone is quietly seated on blankets as the couples walk in, hand in hand, wicker baskets full of smoking, fragrant herbs now attached to their Meeting Cloaks. The smoke behaves strangely, like dry ice vapor, only falling to the ground and fanning out behind them, creating ethereal trains and veils as the wearers walk. And elder midwife, priest, and necromancer stand in front of the basin holding thin candles and direct couples to their positions around it. Once everyone is in their place the trio of elders say a few words of wisdom, (usually very short, people are getting hungry) and then motion to the couples to start the rinsing. Each couple dunks their hands in the water and rinses the excess henna/ink mixture off of their partner’s wrists. During the rinsing the elders chime the bell four times, the Midwife is first and rings twice, then the Priest, then the Necromancer. After the fourth chime the couples remove their hands from the water and step back as the elders drop their candles into the blackened basin. The surface of the water catches fire but dies quickly, leaving a pool of inky black with shimmering golden swirls. Its very mystical and solemn and its all ruined by everyone hooting and hollering when the couples walk back to their family seats.

The day closes out after dinner and dancing. Everyone laughs and parties and pointedly avoids staring at the things that come out of the dark to drink out of the silver basin.

Did you know its almost unheard of for anyone to die in the year after their wedding if they do it traditionally? If they do it right? Just a weird unrelated fact.

Mainland rabbits are starting to forget how to do it right.

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quotes-of-dreamland · 4 years

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I'M CACKLING OH MY GOD FHDJKAFHDSJKAFHDADSAF THAT'S A PERFECT EXPLANATION??????? mod mags is sitting here w his jaw dropped so like. congrats!! you broke him again and it's fucking hilarious. also i agree w ur points. y'all over here like "oh taranza's the biggest simp in the series" and you don't even spare a glance to simp king magolor :/ smh /j -mod kirby

I rest my case. And will probably be going to bed, it’s past midnight and I’ve been writing essays about Magolor being a twink for about 2 hours. Couldn’t think of a better way to spend my time <3

-Mod Susie

#mod susie #all i do all day is worldbuild i think about my opinions HARD #every headcanon i have is defended with countless examples and i will not be defeated #guest star mod kirby #guest star mod magolor #night ya'll <3

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villainsandvictimsalliance · 2 years

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Tbh I would understand more the complaints about "women having horrible deaths / horrible injuries" if the same didn't happen for men.

Ya'll too used to the "damsel in distress" trope.

Okay, let me explain it to you.

The problem is not that it happens only to women. The problem is that it happens to most bnha women, when the number of important female characters is way less than the number of important male characters.

For example:

In the League of Villains. Out of 10 characters, 2 are women and one of them died.

In the Meta Liberation Army, there was only one woman and she was the only to die from those characters.

Out of the UA staff, correct me if I'm wrong but there are like three women, Recovery Girl, Thirteen and Midnight. Out of those, Recovery Girl basically disappeared from the story and Midnight died.

Even more, from the Rooftop Team, Midnight was the only woman and the only one who didn't go to talk with Kurogiri.

In class 1-A, out of 20 students, there are 6 girls. And from those girls, at least half of them got hero suits that doesn't make sense (Hagakure should be able to have a hero suit that turns invisible with her, Momo doesn't have to have such a sexualized hero costume, Uraraka has complained before about her suit being more adjusted to the body than she wanted or asked for).

The problem comes when you already have fewer female characters than male characters and then most of those female characters are either sexualized, death, have had quicker arcs than others or are mostly used for plot points and nothing else.

According to My Hero Academia Wiki, we have:

Women in bnha: 91 characters.

Men in bnha: 259 characters.

When you see the last two arcs involving a woman as an antagonist, (Lady Nagant vs Deku and Stars and Stripes vs Tomura/AFO), you can also see the problem.

Lady Nagant and Stars and Stripes were both supposed to be deadly adversaries, top pro-heroes from the world. Their stories implied they were very important to the whole worldbuilding of bnha. For example, Lady Nagant was the personification of the pro-hero who knows how corrupted is the system só she decided to fight it. And Stars and Stripes is the N. 1 pro-hero in the world if I remember correctly, and she was also going against the law to try and do her hero job.

And yet, both her arcs were so quick. They were used and thrown away. And you could argue "but that's the only way it could have been with the passing of the story" and I could argue "the writer decides the passing of the story and it's him to decided how to solve a plot point".

Lady Nagant could have mean way more for the story. If introduced earlier and more subtly, Stars and Stripes could have been a very very interesting character. But their apparitions were abrupt. With Stars and Stripes, we basically got info-dumped in the middle of the fight and then it was over. It feels forced parcially for those reasons and parcially because it's a bad idea to introduce such an important character almost in the end of the story.

Imagine you get little commercials or mentions of this pro-hero in USA along the whole manga. The manga was surrounded with foreshadowing and commercials of all type, specially regarding Endeavor. I think it could have been better this way with Stars and Stripes.

Also, I getting Lady Nagant out of battle almost immediately and only being there enough to inform Deku of a problem,,,,,, I mean, I would have liked a little more of discussion.

These are just some arguments, not all of them. I want that to be clear. The reasons why we say that Horikoshi is not as careful with his female characters than the rest can be argued in favor in many ways. But what I need you to understand is that you can't just compare male and female characters without numbers, or just with the superficial.

I hope this help somehow.

Have a nice day/night! ✨

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umbylievable · 6 years

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Me and @moonlube had a real ass conversation today about how I don't actually give a shit about making better art, I just want people to give a fuck about the worldbuilding content I've spent half my life on but as much as the book hoes on this website talk about how much they read, they're not gonna spend 2 seconds reading jack shit about anybody's ocs published on blogs or independent sites but will not wash for 2 days while they hole up in their rooms reading 109 chapter fanfiction, and the only way people on this hellsite or any other care about original work is if u put it in a fancy webcomic so I've been busting my ass trying to draw shit just so I can tell stories that people will read and it's not even what I actually want to do!!

Anyway that's my personal frustration of the day, what are ya'll pissed off about?

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theveryworstthing · 7 years

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a rabbit priest travels.

lore and such under the cut.

The Fall Song is a song sung by traveling priests, especially during Mending celebrations (so the fall, hence the name). Though it technically functions as a ‘spirit call’, a song or story meant to attract wandering ghosts to places they can receive help passing on, culturally its regarded as a kind of love song for rabbits in mourning to friends, family, or lovers who’s bodies are never found/never receive proper funeral rites. This is only one of many spirit calls but it is the most widely known, the second most known being ‘Kit Come Home’ which incidentally comes in first as the most depressing thing to hear a passing search and rescue group start defeatedly humming.

lyrics which haven’t been mangled by my handwriting:

How could I ever know How could you never know What bled under the stones What sang inside your bones Trees are turning to flame while the rain falls Things are always the same till the owl calls Better stock up your stores There will always be more Better do what you swore There won’t always be more

Hmm mm. Hmm mm Hmm mmmm. Hmm mm. Hmm mm.

How could I never know How could you ever know When we walked in the sun When you forgot to run Soil under your feet starts to shift fast Hold your breath, say a prayer, hey it might pass Cannot run make a fist Hope the blow doesn’t miss Every day is a risk Love the ones you will miss

Hmm mm. Hmm mm Hmm mmmm. Hmm mm. Hmm mm.

How could we ever know How the graveyard would grow Who is left raise a glass For the body in the grass Dance and sing light it up got another day Ignore the voice in the dark its the only way Feel the teeth on the wind Walk the path till the end Fear is death don’t give in Good stories always end

#long post #rabbits of downtrodden #ghosts #comic #death #i like this priest rabbit #i might keep him #its very scribbly but my wrist hurts and i tried my best :(#worldbuilding for days ya'll

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theveryworstthing · 6 years

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Rabbit Marriage Part 2

part two of today’s rabbit wedding post. warning, this one gets less fun dark, more ‘history sure does suck sometimes’ dark.

Terrible Mating And Marriage History: Rabbit marriage hasn’t shifted very much in the time that its been a thing. But when it did. Oh man.

The biggest mistakes are always the arranged marriages. They work fine for some races but rabbits just never had any luck with them personally.

Arranged marriages don’t even exist on the island anymore, as they were abolished after the fall of the Warren Kings. Rabbit history with arranged marriages is weird, it mostly existed as a blip of bad population control tactics in the far past before widespread birth control became a thing. When it did become popular it was because of the Warren Kings fucking stuff up. Oh, and then there’s the mainland cult. They still do arranged marriages but. You know.

Anyway, here are some bits of history about all those things.

Population Control And Lotteries: Sometimes in the old old days things got cramped. This didn’t actually happen very often believe it or not. Between the predator mortality rates and modern medical practices just starting to get going, rabbits didn’t really have to worry about having too many rabbits around. Problems only arose in that tiny window where reliable birth control wasn’t a thing but life saving medical procedures were. Again, this was a very small window, probably like twenty-something years. Rabbits have been trying to stop having so many dang rabbits forever. Now all that life saving knowledge meant that all those lives were now just…hanging out. Living. So to combat overcrowding and the problems that came with it, some warrens instituted rules for mating and marriage.

Very little knowledge is left about these rules since there are very few necromancy-worthy skulls left from that era and the ones that are available don’t speak the form of lango known today. Plus these rules varied from region to region and some of them were only tried for a short period of time before they were given up on. A lot of population control seemed to be throwing things at the wall and seeing what stuck, and boy did very little stick.

From what historians have gathered, in some warrens does and bucks were simply segregated and only allowed the privilege to marry and mate by lottery. Anyone who disobeyed the lottery was banished outside the warren to fend for themselves. In other areas, if you were born in a litter over a certain number your parents were forced to pick one or two of you to carry on the family name. These chosen siblings would go out and marry/reproduce as normal, while the rest of them were either:

A: Marked as symbolically sterile, meaning any pregnancy they’re apart of or even suspected to be apart of turns into an abortion (plus a castration for any buck involved). This was only popular in regions with a lot of doctors and crowding and the mark was only given after a few months to make sure they didn’t accidentally take a Midwife out of the gene pool. (Bonus fact, if rabbits commit infanticide its usually a few months after birth unless they really really don’t want that baby because saving potential Midwives has been so ground into them socially that they have to be sure.)

Or B: Loose ‘match’ betrothals where the rabbit was allowed to choose their partner, but could only choose a rabbit of the same reproductive role. This was especially prevalent with second litters. Much better than the sterilization thing but a stray pregnancy still meant banishment at best.

Needless to say, there were problems with all of these solutions and rabbits had a tendency to buck against the system just enough so that none of them really worked for long. The lottery systems were especially bad because it was a gamble if your chosen kid was infertile or even ever wanted to be chosen at all considering that all rabbits aren’t straight and all rabbits aren’t cut out for parenthood. Then you went into a weird population drop and people left and it was a mess.

Now fast forward a whole lotta years.

The Warren Kings Are The Root Of So Many Problems Jesus Christ: Holy crap these dudes. After the whole establishing a monarchy thing evolved from a few narcissistic jerks wanting a more rigid class system to terrible crushing dictatorship, Warren Kings straight up stopped having interest in allowing others into their empires. They didn’t quite truck with the usual cross-warren upper class alliance marriages anymore because even THEY knew you couldn’t trust Kings and their families. They needed to Trust the rabbits lucky enough to share their bloodline, and their inbred paranoia made it so they didn’t trust anyone outside of their warren lands. This made upper class courting prospects pretty slim, especially when they couldn’t ignore the genetic downsides of the whole marrying first cousins thing any longer. So they started arranging marriages with the much more genetically diverse commoners, which was terrible for a couple of reasons.

Reason 1: These marriages held no benefit for the chosen rabbit’s family. When a warren king married your daughter they were mainly in it for the kits, those were the only relations of their mate that they would tolerate. As far as they were concerned, the rest of her family didn’t exist unless they were super useful in some way. Like, literally, it was not uncommon for brides or grooms being taken into royal families to be declared orphans.

Reason 2: The reason the commoners were more diverse is because some of them were secretly still traveling and interacting with other warrens like normal people. Trade still has to happen somehow. Now, the kings were very insular and very hyper focused on predator and enemy defense. Making sure they had the safest, biggest warrens is how they kept their power in a time of civil wars and weaponized wolves. This, combined with their paranoia, distanced them from the people. If they didn’t need anything from the commoners, then their actual day to day welfare wasn’t their problem. Strangely, this hands-off ruling kept them in power longer because the people dealt mostly with warren staff and only had to come in contact with the royal family’s awfulness during special events. This paranoia and ignorance about how people lived made it so if your royal suitor caught on that you had living family or friends outside the warren and you actually interacted with them, it would rock their entire world. Then it was a 50/50 chance that they would either murder your family for treason, or imprison your family for treason. They would still marry you if they judged you appropriately sorry about all the treason, but you’d probably live out the rest of your life literally chained to either them or an escort at all times. It would be a nice chain. But still.

Reason 3: I’m sure you’ve caught on by now but the royal families were just awful across the board. They were dismissive of rabbit culture. They treated people beneath them like expendable assets. They kept civil wars going on purpose so that people would feel too unsafe to leave for other, possibly hostile, warrens. They almost wrecked the trade system. They tried to destroy rabbit skulls and writing and anything else historians and necromancers could use to call them on their crimes. The only blessing about their rule is that it was short and survivors of it did everything they could to make sure it never happened again. I’m not gonna elaborate very much on how they treated their commoner spouses, but you can probably guess that it wasn’t great! Having a necromancer around specifically to watch over the harem and revive disobeying does who caught their king on a bad day so they could keep up appearances at dinner was a thing. Straight up disappearing spouses who were never to be spoken of was a thing. Princess Lily the Pure was said to have had at least 120 husbands. They were all taken from a king-less warren her father had taken control of and historically most of them are just…gone. A few half-burnt skulls were found, each saying how many had come before them mixed in with a few broken phrases about blood on her hands. That’s it. No one is quite sure what went down, but evidence suggests that she was either the unluckiest girl in the world, or the most dangerous serial killer ever born. Choose your own horrible horrible adventure.

Reason 4: As stated before, one of the reasons the revolution wasn’t sooner was because the people had little to no contact with their kings. The marriages changed that. People were being torn away from their families, treason was being declared, the royals were demanding inspection of all engaged rabbits just in case they wanted the future bride or groom for themselves. It was terrible. Marriage became less about love and more about protection. The royal family wouldn’t take anyone already married. Being with a commoner was bad enough, but what if there were commoner kits related to their kits hidden away somewhere, ready to challenge them for leadership? Unacceptable! Can’t take that chance! So parents started marrying their children off earlier and earlier in what were known as ‘Snow’ weddings. Snow meaning they were impermanent, meant to melt away with age until they found their real partner and sought a divorce (a process which literally lasted the time it took to walk their Snow partner to their new beau on their wedding day, leaving a time gap any wider was risky) . This actually worked pretty well for a while. A few people were killed so their ‘spouses’ could be taken but the public uproar was enough so that it was very rare. Trouble really arose when the royals started kidnapping attractive pregnant couples and imprisoning them so that they could take their offspring and betroth them to their own young children. Luckily this was towards the end of the the kings’ reign. So when the revolution hit, a few of these couples and their children had lived long enough for rescue.

After all this, you can see how rabbits on the island might think that arranged marriages are Not On.

But wait. There’s more.

Lapindary Rabbits And Breeding ‘Perfect’ Hybrids On The Mainland: The Lapindary Order is a group thought up by two of the original rabbits involved with the inner circles of the Warren Kings. They were in charge of trade for the kings and didn’t really live on the island, preferring to stay on the mainland for business reasons (and because they wanted to see if the monarchy thing would work out before they had to face the rabbits they were helping screw over). Lucky them, they missed out on the whole guillotine business when the people rose up. Unlucky them, all their power on the island pretty much vanished over night and it was a good bet that they could never return without having a date with the aforementioned guillotine. So they started over with another power scheme, because that’s what power schemers do. With the help of a ridiculously wealthy 1/64th rabbit-blood widow named English Ivy, they began the Lapindary Order on the mainland. The original goal was a small secretive match making club, devoted to marrying hybrid mainlander rabbits into positions of wealth and funneling that money back to the founders. It of course got out of hand, as these things do, and quickly became a legit cult that believes in a future where rabbit/mainlander hybrids are recognized as The Best of both races, taking their proper place beside the King and Queen themselves.

Back in the day (not that much has changed), rabbits that married into mainlander houses were considered trophy wives/husbands. They weren’t usually involved in ownership of businesses or control of the estate unless their mainlander spouse was indisposed and no mainlander family members were around to take over. Only mainlanders really knew mainlander affairs after all. Hybrids didn’t have it much better, it was (and still is) a gamble of which way your features lean. Plus your class and your gender and where your rabbit parent was born and the mainland’s weird view of rabbit attractiveness…its complicated. And frustrating. The Lapindaries took advantage of this, and sought to enlist the most ‘perfect’ rabbit half-breeds (low or attractive mutations, good health, strong rabbit features, susceptibility to the spiel) for breeding stock in their society climbing plans. Long story short, the order continues today as a web of intricately arranged marriages, some meant to eventually gain access to the royal houses, some meant to simply hold attractive public positions and turn out the prettiest possible hybrid kits. They’re still a secretive and selective club with only a few chapters and most people believing them to simply be a religious order headed by wealthy rabbits. They’re mostly joked about, like an attractive and harmless Illuminati. No one outside the order knows their true purpose. No one knows about the notebooks or the curses or the poisoned wine glasses or the unnamed kits who aren’t born up to ‘gem standards’ either. No one is ever going to know.

They’ve spent too many years making sure of that.

#rabbits of downtrodden #long post #worldbuilding for days ya'll #wedding #arranged marriage #abuse mention

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theveryworstthing · 7 years

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kind of related to the last Downtrodden ask, today’s spookmas drawing involves the possible outcomes of mainlander babies abandoned in the forest before they’re done shifting completely. these two were pretty far along before their parents dumped them, memories and guesswork got them mostly there, but the wind rustling through tree branches or a bramble patch can do some real work on a half baked bab looking to imitate something living. they’re not the worst off they could be, but they’re pretty much doomed to live beyond the wall their entire lives if they survive somehow. they’d be killed by other mainlanders as monsters if the Royals didn’t have them captured and put in their menageries first. which tbh would probably still kill them because the fascination would wear off and be replaced by that good old ‘you are pretending to be mortals and your whole race is a lie’ feeling which would make the Royals Displeased with them.

none of this is really an issue since though. no mainlanders have reported seeing any adult Orphans in hundreds of years. all the half-shifted babies abandoned in the woods are said to be monsters switched out for their true children by malicious forest spirits.

if there are any out there leading stable lives outside the walls, the only people they would come in contact with would be hare caravans. considering hares originated on the island, they’d probably be pretty friendly with them on principle because their race has seen weirder, maybe they’d even adopt one or two, but they’d keep them really hidden to protect them. if they exist. which they may not.

just saying.

#rabbits of downtrodden #worldbuilding for days ya'll #Mainlanders #body horror

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theveryworstthing · 7 years

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i haven’t done a long lore post in a while since i was so focused on answering people’s oc questions and such. well, its time to get back to basics. i’m gonna teach y’all about bunny necromancy.

Necromancers:

Necromancers! People of a common and socially celebrated profession that are seen as pillars of the community. Every part of the island has necromancers and their work is a valuable source of rabbit history and survival. Their communications with deceased doctors and their patients have allowed rabbit medical practices to progress by leaps and bounds. Ancient rituals and hidden warrens have been discovered. Sustainable farming techniques have been revived. And that’s just the old old stuff, getting away with murder isn’t very successful when your victim can still give a lengthy description of your face. Yes, necromancy is a comfort in the trying times on the island. A certainty that not only is there something much more chill after the moment you realize that you’re probably not going to outrun that owl, but that you might still get the chance to call your surviving brother an asshole for picking this trade route in the first place. Not the biggest prizes in the grand scheme of things, but rabbits take what they can get.

Necromancers are late bloomers magic wise, with powers emerging at around 7 to 15 years old. This gives them a little less initial control over their powers than other members of the Life Magic trio. As an upside, being older makes it so blossoming necromancers have a more concrete knowledge of death and the maturity needed to problem solve, de-escalate, and converse clearly with the dead. This is kind of important, since the dead might pick up the phone pissed as hell and with a few choice words about wolves that are not really fit for tiny ears.

Kits are tested for necromantic abilities every year from the ages of 6 to 16. Its very simple and usually built into their yearly physical, consisting of an attempt to call a deceased family member or local volunteer. Pretty simple. Sometimes its not so simple though. Sometimes a 5 year old or a 20 year old or a rabbit who’s just finished testing negative will spontaneously give the closest dead body a ring. This is surprising at best and emotionally trying at worst.

Since there’s no ritual involved there’s no real ‘door’ for the spirit to come through so its more like being yanked through a wall unless the soul hadn’t fully crossed yet. People don’t like that very much. Plus, they might get stranded and then a priest or other necromancer has to come open a door out for them and that’s someone’s afternoon just gone. Plus, now a confused dead person is either walking around or cursing into the night which is gross/rude. This usually only happens once or twice to untrained necromancers since pulling people through that ‘wall’ is pretty hard and it’s the spikes of magic while powers emerge that does it. After the gift is there it just kind of mellows. Aside from growing pains and freak spikes in powerful individuals, you’re not going to call people back on accident.

Training:

Necromancer schooling is mostly about conduct with the dead and upkeep of ritual items. They apprentice under a local necromancer, first just to learn control, but they’ll stick with it if they want to make a career out of it. Necromancy training differs in intensity depending on what you want to do with it. Some people work with historians, rescue parties, doctors, detectives, ect. Others are more freelance, lending their services to anyone who wants to speak with the dead or creating bone constructs for Walking Worms. No matter what you choose you’ll probably end up needing AT LEAST a few languages under your belt if you don’t have a partner for translating and some training in the job you’re working with.

Very good hygiene helps too. Learning how to disinfect yourself and your tools keeps everyone flesh eating bacteria free. Necromancers are stereotyped as always smelling of soaps and perfumes.

And mud breath.

We’ll get to that.

Necromancer tools:

There are a few things you’ll need to successfully call up a dead person. The most common tools are as follows:

Intact Skull: For talking. The spirit needs something to inhabit for communication and that’s much easier if they inhabit a part of themselves commonly used for that. The mental link of imitating life in the living world is important for a good connection. Hearing impaired people have hands saved instead for writing or signing. A few old dance centered warrens were rumored to have saved entire skeletons for interpretive dance numbers. Whatever works. Skulls are most common though. A skull with missing pieces or cracks can be used if patched up or provided with substitute bits but your reception might get janky.

Consent: Getting the okay to bring a person back to the physical plane and interact with them. Its important to cut down on confusion and stress for everyone involved in a necromantic ritual. A panicked spirit will not be able to communicate well and will be reluctant to approve contact in the future.

Topsoil: Represents barrier between life/death. Usually a little dry with bits of fresh leaves or grass mixed in. sand from the island works for this but it has to be dry.

Root Soil: Represents life/safety. Just good rich soil from deep under ground. The dead are attracted to the smell.

Water: Island fresh water is best but any salt water will do fine. Mainland fresh water is unusable.

Looking Glass: Large rounded 20 (can be less) sided dice with different expressive eyes carved on each surface. They must fit in the eye sockets of a skull and usually come in three sizes (small medium large, large is very rarely used). The dice sit in the eye socket and roll to the expression the dead are feeling. These are usually made of wood, but can be made of other materials like stone, bone, or resin. Rabbit bone is not advised since it messes with the signal. The only exception would be if you’re using the bones of the person you’re calling OR your own bones. This actually makes reception better and also serves as a great after-disaster crafting project if you’re not fond of crochet.

Cloth: A handkerchief or cloth scrap covered in symbols. Usually white with colorful pictures of plants and animals. Symbols differ, but there’s always the circular necromantic sigil in the center.

Alcohol: Just in case. Don’t worry about it.

Some sort of fire making implement: Just in case. Seriously, don’t worry about it.

Let’s Talk To Dead People!

Ritual: There are potential entrances to The Rest almost everywhere because its possible to die almost anywhere. Travel between the planes of life and death is mostly one way, with spirits going in but not out and the living not going in at all despite magic shenanigans. Necromancers get the closest to entry, but they really do the equivalent of standing at the door and yelling.

Rabbit practices that come in contact with The Rest are all about turning symbolic pathways into real ones that the dead can travel on and the living can communicate through. Rabbits can forgo ritual if they’re powerful enough, but again its like pulling someone through a wall. Its sudden, and the lack of proper aim or consent from the dead person can lead to unsuccessful calls, throwing the spirit into a panic, or trapping a spirit in the living world.

Preparation: Place cloth on face with half of the topsoil sprinkled on top (go light unless you’re cool with dirt in every crevice of your body), have a small cup of mud made from the root soil and water at the ready, place looking glass in eye sockets with the ‘closed’ side showing (preferably before you put the cloth on your face).

Door Opening : Release big puff of air through the handkerchief that displaces the dirt.

Calling: While the cloth is still on your face, take a quick swig of mud to coat the mouth. Spit it out, call the person’s name, and wait for a response.

Clarify: Make sure you got the right person, get their consent to bring them over, and agree not to fuck with each other. The last one isn’t necessary but it is strongly advised

Let them in: Take the cloth off of your face and put it on their skull soil side down. Only remove it once you hear the *thunk* of the die rolling to ‘here’. Keep cloth balled up in fist while talking. That door is still open and you need to keep an eye on it.

Talking: Have a chat.

Leaving : Put the cloth back on their skull, soil side up. Only remove it when you hear the die turn to ‘gone’. Take the cloth and pour the rest of the topsoil on the soil side, tying it up with string or twisting it up into a little dirt pouch. Keep tied closed until the sigil on the bottom stops glowing. It doesn’t take long.

Laws Of Necromancy:

Though the island doesn’t have literal necromancy ‘laws’ there are things that you traditionally don’t do. Breaking these laws can lead to a necromancer being ostracized or even exiled depending on the severity of the offense. The main ones are:

1. No purposely trapping a spirit on the living plane. That’s just shitty. No one want to be a screaming skull. No one wants to be a haunted butt cheek. Do not.

2. No purposely raising entire bodies. This is mostly to deter those who would use the deceased as slave labor. In the real old days there were a few warrens built or guarded by criminals who were denied true death until they paid their due. There are old stories of beautiful young does who turned down offers from old kings and still had to bear both an execution and a wedding against their will. These tales are told with horror and disgust to young training necromancers and instill a fierce respect for the dead. There are exceptions, like if consent by the deceased is enthusiastically given before death for a ceremony or something. But they are to be released asap and the necromancer should always be in a position to help them achieve their goals, not the other way around.

3. No obsessive calling. This is mostly a problem with necromancers struggling with traumatic loss or infatuation with a person. If you just can’t let go or you’re assisting someone who can’t let go you both need to seek counsel from someone trained to handle grief. Plus, too many calls too often (say several calls every day for years) can cause pre-mature blindness, self-destructive behaviors, and intense exhaustion.

4. No lying. Don’t lie to the dead. Don’t lie about the dead. If you can’t be a truthful link between the living and the dead then you don’t need to be a link at all. Yes, sometimes this means exposing uncomfortable truths when you find them but you’ll only know what the dead tell you so. You know. Deal with it.

5. Don’t be weird about it. no one, living or dead, likes the dude who calls someone and heavy breathes into the receiver. Don’t be That Guy. The dead can still get creeped out.

What Could Go Wrong?

Because something always can.

A pathway isn’t closed after use: It’ll close itself eventually but in the meantime the spirit that used it can travel back through and potentially become trapped on the living side. A mess.

A spirit is pulled into something that isn’t their body: Very rare but it happens, usually a case of early necromantic power spikes. Confusing and distressing to the spirit but not that bad in the short term (like a day to a week). In the long term severe dysphoria and an extreme need to communicate set in. This is where you get your haunted items. These spirits warp the object they’re trapped inside, sometimes even gaining the ability to feel through their new ‘body’, in an effort to find some way to speak to people. This can be anything from a book’s cover gaining the texture of skin or fur, to fingernails growing out of a blanket. Changes are more severe if the spirit had magical abilities. These strange attributes leave the objects once the spirit is exorcised but in the meantime you’re gonna have a whispering blood-cupboard on your hands.

You goofed opening the pathway: No big deal. It just doesn’t open and you feel a little tired.

Abnormalities: Sometimes there’ll be a little weirdness in your chat with a dead person. That’s alright. There are always going to be outliers in any practice. Sometimes you can call and call and no one ever answers. Sometimes the spirit doesn’t exactly act like a spirit, or doesn’t acknowledge its death. Most necromancers will never encounter cases like this but those that do are usually reaching out to people who had immense magical power in life. Its better not to mess with these people unless they’re really on board with being called back. They get…irritable. Jimson Weed, famed pirate queen and mother of modern necromancy will fucking drag you and all your dead relatives if you wake her up for no reason.

That’s not grandpa: This is nothing to really worry about buuuuuut, if whatever is coming through can’t control the Looking Glasses they’re an imposter. You did not tap into the rest, something nearby saw you trying and decided to interrupt your call and pretend to be a person. Very VERY rare but dangerous. Do not engage. Do not listen to them. Do not take the cloth off. Pour topsoil and alcohol on the covered skull, and set it on fire. Don’t worry about the skull, it won’t burn. Its not what the fire is aiming for. When the cloth is completely burned away you can try again. If you encounter the thing again you’ll sense a burning smell and can get out before it tries to talk to you. Delays in answers and strange speech patterns that seem patched together from different voices like an audio ransom note are warning signs. You’ll notice that you’re not hearing a voice really, just feeling words like telepathy. These things have no mouths. They don’t need a skull to talk to you. They just want you distracted and using your powers. They want to open a door in you and climb inside. They won’t stay long since something about rabbit bodies flings them out after a while but It’ll have as much fun as it can before then. You might not survive the fun. They don’t really ‘get’ the possible hazards to a corporeal body.

Again, very rare, nothing to worry about.

Just don’t listen to it.

#rabbits of downtrodden #necromancy #worldbuilding for days ya'll #THE LONGEST POST

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