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lenora_roseI mentioned I was thinking about doing this. let me know if you're interested in more.
I write about three places in any detail;
A world that is pretty much ours, except that the city on the fork of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers is called Damina-Riel, not Winnipeg. I've been calling the planet Damina-Earth in my own notes, even though as far as the fictional set-up is concerned, it's the ONLY Earth, and we don't exist.
Tuathea, a more typical fantasy world which, being slower to develop scientifically is about 300 years behind us in its most modern areas, and further back in others.
And Faerie, which crops up in stories about both the other two.
There are exceptions: the Labyrinth story takes place in its own pocket universe for the most part, though it has obvious connections to Damina-Earth's North America. And there are fragments in other stories that mention some others, without human population. But in general, I stick to the two with humans, especially as Tuathea, like Earth, has so many continents (Plus historical eras and future eras) to keep anyone occupied for a long time.
Twenty-Two Anchors
It begins with Faerie. It kind of has to.
Magic doesn't act like matter or energy. It acts like talent. The more of it is used, the more of it develops. The less it is used, the more it withers. Since this would mess up the order of physics and the universe if spread across the entirety, it was initially collected in one place.
Thus Faerie, originally the only place with active magic, was a place where magic was in constant use, (though not necessarily by every individual at all times), and quickly discovered the major disadvantage of this.
Which is, in short, that it dissolves everything else. If things are in continuous change, they can never grow or develop. The magic that made Faerie what it was, and the creatures therein what they are, was likely to turn the whole thing into formless chaos. (Which would end the conscious deliberate use of magic, of course, and cause it thus to wither.)
So the fey and elementals there present -- and aware enough of things beyond their own brains to care; fey at least seem to often forget the rest of their own world exists, never mind worlds beyond -- implemented a solution. They made twenty-one "anchors" that lead to other worlds, spanning across the universe. The part of faerie nearest these anchors is changed only minimally, and the creatures and nature of the planets thus connected to determined the nature of faerie in that area. Thus, an anchor to Earth subjected the invading Faerie to humans' beliefs; for example, it caused Fey in that vicinity to mostly take human-esque or animalesque forms pretty much universally, though how these creatures were interpreted in specific changed across the world. Later, when seeking to repel more malicious versions of fey the mostly bronze-age European people knew iron made significantly more powerful weapons, and believing it could hurt Fey... caused it to be able to hurt Fey. To a certain degree, even the belief in how helpful or malicious a particular fey being is caused that being to become more helpful or malicious. (This also leads to contradictions in nature: at least one fey who believes he hates humans and wants to be free of their influence forever -- takes human shape and has fallen for at least one human woman.)
These anchors also leak magic. In many places, this magic is little-used or unused, and becomes minor background "radiation", causing the occasional ghost or odd phenomenon. In others, it was almost immediately adopted by local species (Moreso if the fey had a hand in manipulating evolution in the vicinity) and thus is increasing on the anchor world. Tuathea is a pretty good example, although, as noted, the Fey had a hand in the world, and how much magic they themselves put into it.
There is a twenty-second anchor, too, within Faerie itself, and not linked to anything else; a garden whose growth must be tended by hand, with only malicious magical damage repaired by magic. The tender of the garden is thus a fey who uses little magic, and is often weaker than its fellows.
The fey, of course, are not all happy with this arrangement. Some chose to toy with creatures and transplant them from one world to another, so they could free themselves from some of the more distasteful limitations and weaknesses imposed. (Leading to humans and other earth creatures being on Tuathea, a planet whose other sentient races had a particularly weakening effect on the fey, believing them to be more easily beaten and more mortal than they liked. The fact that these were only partially supplanted, and only by humans, who believe the fey powerful but limited, rather than one of the species that accept Fey entirely as all-powerful, has led a number of wizards and scientists both to debate exactly why, which fey did that, and with what ultimate intent.)
But some don't even like that, and wish to loose Faerie from *every* anchor that doesn't involve beings who think them above gods.
The thing is, none of the anchors can be loosed unless the twenty-second is entirely destroyed. Which is why the palace is linked to a fortress, whose denizens believe the anchors are more beneficial than otherwise (Not always for purposes the various worlds would recognize as positive - kelpies like it because they want the access to prey.) Only the absolute most powerful fey would try those odds, and even then, they would need to develop a huge number of fey and non-fey allies.
One anchor the fey and almost everyone else would like to cut loose, if possible: that which leads to the creature they call the Mother of Dragons, though the dragons of Tuathea would not recognize her as one of their species. The Mother of Dragons is a fey, originally, in spite of her shape and preference of title.
And she's no small bit a tyrant; she has a narcissistic streak a mile wide, and is sure she deserves all acclaim, and that she can do any horrible thing she likes to those she chooses to help her, and they will still agree with her and serve her. Any disagreement, she blames on the influence of the phoenix (Another powerful fey, who has chosen to leave Faerie and stay on the anchor world it liked best) because that means she never has to examine her methods or become the least introspective.
The other fey as a whole managed to trap the Mother of Dragons so she can only reach her own world, and occasional time in Faerie itself, though they can't keep her from sending messages or thoughts. She's looking for other beings with magic who can fall under her influence and take over the other anchor worlds. She absolutely wants the anchors to stay; they give her places to aspire to rule. Also, those who'd want the anchors broken don't want her to rule them.
And some of the fey have observed that with absolute rule over one anchor world, she has some powers none of the rest of them have. So some of them end up making devil's bargains with her. And few cross her directly.
Just like Home?
There's not much to say about Damina-Earth. Damina-Riel, as a city, does differ from Winnipeg enough that I can't easily change the name back and transplant the action here. Even though it does have a very similar attitude and size.
The main difference is that there's more magic - small doses originally, but growing, as magic does when practiced. Its influence is thus low enough historically that the world and technological advances are pretty recognizable, and cultures haven't altered a lot (especially as most cultures already allow for magic/miracles/ESP/witchcraft/etc.)
The history of its North America isn't quite as devastating as it was here (For instance, the Winnipeg stats say that our population is about 6% Métis and 10% North American Indian {Wikipedia's term}. Damina-Riel is about 8% and 16% respectively. Immigrant populations have roughly the same ratio of ethnicities to one another in the remaining population, which means a slightly lower percentage across the board; except for African and Caribbean, which are fractionally higher.) It still involved genocide, plague, massive slavery, colonialism, and the magic trying to fight back was weak enough that its overall result was to soften, not cure all the evils of the European conquest.
I was admittedly lazy, and assumed the same music, movies, and other cultural icons would be around, as the same artists should be (Although the sorts of people who grumble at familiar names showing up in drastically different Alternate Universes would still be able to use the identical grumble). However, I moved around release dates and performer line-ups slightly in the early 1990s so I could obscure the specific year in which events in Bird of Dusk happen.
I'd like to joke that in Damina-Earth, Al Gore won the 2000 Election, but the only story I've even begun on Damina-Earth that doesn't happen *before* 2000 is Labyrinth, where the POTUS is far from a relevant detail.
Tuathea's complex enough it requires a future post.
_____________
In unrelated news, last night I dreamed I had a perfect plot idea for a book that would be not only salable but good.
This involved taking the plot directly from the My Little Pony movie (Not that i think there is such a thing? Was there and I missed it? If so, thank god I did) but to replace the pastel ponies with nasty, scarred, grizzled old war horses and their pony-friends with various grim veterans. But pit them against the same sort of villains and odds.
I have to say, a story from the point of view of a scarred old warhorse sounds fun, but....
I think my brain is weird.
I write about three places in any detail;
A world that is pretty much ours, except that the city on the fork of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers is called Damina-Riel, not Winnipeg. I've been calling the planet Damina-Earth in my own notes, even though as far as the fictional set-up is concerned, it's the ONLY Earth, and we don't exist.
Tuathea, a more typical fantasy world which, being slower to develop scientifically is about 300 years behind us in its most modern areas, and further back in others.
And Faerie, which crops up in stories about both the other two.
There are exceptions: the Labyrinth story takes place in its own pocket universe for the most part, though it has obvious connections to Damina-Earth's North America. And there are fragments in other stories that mention some others, without human population. But in general, I stick to the two with humans, especially as Tuathea, like Earth, has so many continents (Plus historical eras and future eras) to keep anyone occupied for a long time.
Twenty-Two Anchors
It begins with Faerie. It kind of has to.
Magic doesn't act like matter or energy. It acts like talent. The more of it is used, the more of it develops. The less it is used, the more it withers. Since this would mess up the order of physics and the universe if spread across the entirety, it was initially collected in one place.
Thus Faerie, originally the only place with active magic, was a place where magic was in constant use, (though not necessarily by every individual at all times), and quickly discovered the major disadvantage of this.
Which is, in short, that it dissolves everything else. If things are in continuous change, they can never grow or develop. The magic that made Faerie what it was, and the creatures therein what they are, was likely to turn the whole thing into formless chaos. (Which would end the conscious deliberate use of magic, of course, and cause it thus to wither.)
So the fey and elementals there present -- and aware enough of things beyond their own brains to care; fey at least seem to often forget the rest of their own world exists, never mind worlds beyond -- implemented a solution. They made twenty-one "anchors" that lead to other worlds, spanning across the universe. The part of faerie nearest these anchors is changed only minimally, and the creatures and nature of the planets thus connected to determined the nature of faerie in that area. Thus, an anchor to Earth subjected the invading Faerie to humans' beliefs; for example, it caused Fey in that vicinity to mostly take human-esque or animalesque forms pretty much universally, though how these creatures were interpreted in specific changed across the world. Later, when seeking to repel more malicious versions of fey the mostly bronze-age European people knew iron made significantly more powerful weapons, and believing it could hurt Fey... caused it to be able to hurt Fey. To a certain degree, even the belief in how helpful or malicious a particular fey being is caused that being to become more helpful or malicious. (This also leads to contradictions in nature: at least one fey who believes he hates humans and wants to be free of their influence forever -- takes human shape and has fallen for at least one human woman.)
These anchors also leak magic. In many places, this magic is little-used or unused, and becomes minor background "radiation", causing the occasional ghost or odd phenomenon. In others, it was almost immediately adopted by local species (Moreso if the fey had a hand in manipulating evolution in the vicinity) and thus is increasing on the anchor world. Tuathea is a pretty good example, although, as noted, the Fey had a hand in the world, and how much magic they themselves put into it.
There is a twenty-second anchor, too, within Faerie itself, and not linked to anything else; a garden whose growth must be tended by hand, with only malicious magical damage repaired by magic. The tender of the garden is thus a fey who uses little magic, and is often weaker than its fellows.
The fey, of course, are not all happy with this arrangement. Some chose to toy with creatures and transplant them from one world to another, so they could free themselves from some of the more distasteful limitations and weaknesses imposed. (Leading to humans and other earth creatures being on Tuathea, a planet whose other sentient races had a particularly weakening effect on the fey, believing them to be more easily beaten and more mortal than they liked. The fact that these were only partially supplanted, and only by humans, who believe the fey powerful but limited, rather than one of the species that accept Fey entirely as all-powerful, has led a number of wizards and scientists both to debate exactly why, which fey did that, and with what ultimate intent.)
But some don't even like that, and wish to loose Faerie from *every* anchor that doesn't involve beings who think them above gods.
The thing is, none of the anchors can be loosed unless the twenty-second is entirely destroyed. Which is why the palace is linked to a fortress, whose denizens believe the anchors are more beneficial than otherwise (Not always for purposes the various worlds would recognize as positive - kelpies like it because they want the access to prey.) Only the absolute most powerful fey would try those odds, and even then, they would need to develop a huge number of fey and non-fey allies.
One anchor the fey and almost everyone else would like to cut loose, if possible: that which leads to the creature they call the Mother of Dragons, though the dragons of Tuathea would not recognize her as one of their species. The Mother of Dragons is a fey, originally, in spite of her shape and preference of title.
And she's no small bit a tyrant; she has a narcissistic streak a mile wide, and is sure she deserves all acclaim, and that she can do any horrible thing she likes to those she chooses to help her, and they will still agree with her and serve her. Any disagreement, she blames on the influence of the phoenix (Another powerful fey, who has chosen to leave Faerie and stay on the anchor world it liked best) because that means she never has to examine her methods or become the least introspective.
The other fey as a whole managed to trap the Mother of Dragons so she can only reach her own world, and occasional time in Faerie itself, though they can't keep her from sending messages or thoughts. She's looking for other beings with magic who can fall under her influence and take over the other anchor worlds. She absolutely wants the anchors to stay; they give her places to aspire to rule. Also, those who'd want the anchors broken don't want her to rule them.
And some of the fey have observed that with absolute rule over one anchor world, she has some powers none of the rest of them have. So some of them end up making devil's bargains with her. And few cross her directly.
Just like Home?
There's not much to say about Damina-Earth. Damina-Riel, as a city, does differ from Winnipeg enough that I can't easily change the name back and transplant the action here. Even though it does have a very similar attitude and size.
The main difference is that there's more magic - small doses originally, but growing, as magic does when practiced. Its influence is thus low enough historically that the world and technological advances are pretty recognizable, and cultures haven't altered a lot (especially as most cultures already allow for magic/miracles/ESP/witchcraft/etc.)
The history of its North America isn't quite as devastating as it was here (For instance, the Winnipeg stats say that our population is about 6% Métis and 10% North American Indian {Wikipedia's term}. Damina-Riel is about 8% and 16% respectively. Immigrant populations have roughly the same ratio of ethnicities to one another in the remaining population, which means a slightly lower percentage across the board; except for African and Caribbean, which are fractionally higher.) It still involved genocide, plague, massive slavery, colonialism, and the magic trying to fight back was weak enough that its overall result was to soften, not cure all the evils of the European conquest.
I was admittedly lazy, and assumed the same music, movies, and other cultural icons would be around, as the same artists should be (Although the sorts of people who grumble at familiar names showing up in drastically different Alternate Universes would still be able to use the identical grumble). However, I moved around release dates and performer line-ups slightly in the early 1990s so I could obscure the specific year in which events in Bird of Dusk happen.
I'd like to joke that in Damina-Earth, Al Gore won the 2000 Election, but the only story I've even begun on Damina-Earth that doesn't happen *before* 2000 is Labyrinth, where the POTUS is far from a relevant detail.
Tuathea's complex enough it requires a future post.
_____________
In unrelated news, last night I dreamed I had a perfect plot idea for a book that would be not only salable but good.
This involved taking the plot directly from the My Little Pony movie (Not that i think there is such a thing? Was there and I missed it? If so, thank god I did) but to replace the pastel ponies with nasty, scarred, grizzled old war horses and their pony-friends with various grim veterans. But pit them against the same sort of villains and odds.
I have to say, a story from the point of view of a scarred old warhorse sounds fun, but....
I think my brain is weird.
