Universal Tales- Recounting Of The Helix, From The Words Of Avaas(Altersae)

Organizations of the realms in the Elvaria Universe

Boriasonde is crossed out since it collapsed(refer to Voiskanan lore)

I finally got my shit done back to elvaria I'm (temporarily) free🙏🙏🙏

Just had an idea for a zine where each issue begins with a short description of an original fictional world and each artist has to create something from that world. Whether it’s a grand landscape piece, a scientific article about one of the world’s strange creatures, or a short personal story from one of the inhabitants, every artist would contribute something to the collaborative fiction of the new world.

An Anaios Föllen Alatsan, Litusia Floernian, and Shan’hu Walekrian

Universal Lore- Part 2, The Realms of Death(The Realm of Endless White & The Realm of Skybeasts)

When observing the order of realms in this existence, it is fair to say that the High Realms are roughly in the same level as The Realm of Endless White, but most denizens of either will never encounter the other.

This realm is, as it is aptly named, pure white. There is no civilization there, and when first entering it may seem that there is simply nothing there at all. It is simply a realm of expansive ground that has no variation in topography- but there is "life", or rather the remnants of life.

To explain the Realm of Endless White, you must first know of the Realm of Skybeasts, where all dead from the Lower Planes must pass through first before they reach the White.

Whether they have sinned or were gracious in life, or were mere children or elderly before their deaths, all life of the Lower Planes is sent here and enters through a doorway known as Telvorshei Ermelorisk, or "From Where We Emerged". No living being*¹ has ever crossed through this entryway or has gazed through it to describe its appearance- but for those nearing death and those who have already died, on both ways there is only a white light within the doorway. High Realms races are unaware of the existence of this realm and none have ever entered it*².

The doorway is located in a fixed spot within the Realm of Skybeasts, but whether the entry into a realm of death is a peaceful or horrifying ordeal is a matter of your own luck. As anyone who has died would quickly find out, the Realm of Skybeasts, also known as The Plateau, is filled with strange beasts known as skybeasts, and the vast majority of them are incredibly aggressive and possess a great many ways to kill a soul, including various venoms, spikes, and teeth.

If a soul did not get mauled by a skybeast as soon as they emerged, they will very quickly also realize that in contrast with the inviting clouds that create the ground of the realm, there are a great many eyes that dot the sky in all sorts of colours and forms that a mortal never would've thought existed. On a calm period, these eyes are inactive and appear to not be present(thought if you look closely they are closed). On an active period, they will randomly emit blasts of energy that can disintegrate any soul they land on. In the distance there is also a giant gaping maw that opens during these active periods and vacuums up souls that happen to be near it.

If you manage to survive this and travel in any direction away from the maw, you will come across rudimentary shelters and outposts surrounded by fences made of various Skybeast parts.

These are the only major signs of civilization and a souls' best chance of making it to the Realm of Endless White.

The outposts are roughly the size of a town and they have very simplistic names, with the inhabitants are a mix of races from across the Lower Planes. There is no major language barrier as souls appear knowing a common language along with whatever is their native tongue, but abstract ideas that are unique to specific worlds are not automatically learned by souls from worlds without them.

As for the condition of the people and whether or not they can die, people who die at the age of adulthood for their kind will appear in the Plateau at their peak strength in life and with whatever they had on their person when they died(if they were stabbed or shot they carry the thing that was stuck into them too), but are incapable of learning new spells from other souls. Children and adolescents will appear at the age they died but will be able to grow up to the age their species considers as mature and can learn new spells. The only ways to permanently die in the realm are to be consumed by the maw, be completely eaten by a skybeast, or be blasted into smithereens by the Eyes. Souls that suffer a temporary death may slowly regenerate if a part of them remains or will reappear at Telvorshei Ermelorisk.

Life in these settlements is considered somewhat tribal, with the main concerns being food(appetites are significantly slower than in life), shelter, hunting and resource gathering, and weapon crafting. Some settlements that are close to each other will choose to specialize in weapon crafting, some in building, and some in medicine. Souls that are known to have a violent nature that cannot be persuaded to become skybeast hunters are kicked out of the settlements and left to fend for themselves.

Banditry does exist in the Plateau but is rare as some settlements may have domesticated the more tame skybeasts. Whether or not a settlement is raided also depends on the actual species(plural) in the settlement and what kind of technology the people have, so a bandit group composed of species without magic would not try to go against a settlement composed of species with magic or with technology sufficient enough to compensate for a lack of magic.

Now, the Plateau does have a sort of leadership, albeit very distant from the regular souls.

The beings are not of any race among the souls of the Plateau, so souls that have encountered them before(and have the concept of divinity on their world) view them as strange gods. Those from races without the concept of divinity have two different views, one being that they are of a long extinct race and have evolved after spending many uncountable years in the Plateau, and the second that they are actually native to the Plateau but evolved to become more intelligent than the skybeasts.

The leaders themselves are known as the 7 Elders by souls and are split into two groups: The Supreme Ones and The Fragments.

From what little souls have heard about them, their names have the prefix "The Elder of" and are something akin to Many Eyes, Many Arms, Many Legs, Fragmented Life, Fragmented Death, Fragmented Time, and Fragmented Space. The maw in the land and the eyes in the sky are part of what used to be an 8th Elder known as Many Mouths, according to souls that have been in the realm from the first few thousand deaths in existence. Now, the 8th is known as The Devourer of the Plateau.

The Elders live in a very out of place citadel with geometric patterning and a large central chamber that few have ever seen, and it is generally accepted that the Elders are strange in that they have never left the Plateau.

Souls are able to leave the Plateau whenever they hit a kill quota of skybeasts, and this number tends to be higher for those that have committed something their society considers to be negative and lower for younger souls that couldn't actually commit anything considered a crime, but it isn't uncommon for souls to have quotas that are unreasonable for what they have done in life.

The Elders, though, have been present for as long as anyone knows, unable to pass on or perhaps unwilling, as the Devourer has consumed some trillions of skybeasts but has yet to disappear.

And so the focus must return to the Realm of Endless White, also known as The White or The Expanse, to complete this description.

When a soul has reached their kill quota in the Plateau, they will appear in The White in simple garb considered to be casual or sleepwear from the species they came from. In The White there is no need to eat or sleep, only to just exist. Desires such as lust or greed do not exist, and so the personalities of the souls that make it there are very watered down. Some souls choose to lay down and sleep until the end of everything, and some others choose to travel around and learn of the many races in existence with there being no skybeasts to fear anymore.

Curiously, some Altersaeans, Spaelculans, and Tilemgians have appeared in this realm before, but not many of them.

Now, the only way to permanently kill a High Realms being is to slay them in their home realm under specific circumstances and methods, which will lead to two outcomes for them: one is two simply cease to exist, the other is to appear in The White. Due to The Tearing, there are a fair amount of Tilemgians there, but all the High Realms races that appear will lose their connection to their creators and thus their abilities, with some also facing severe memory loss.

Voiskanans are believed to also follow these outcomes, however what few Voiskanans that are seen to make it to The White only maintain their existence for a few seconds before fading into nothingness, as their souls will always be incomplete and thus return to their origins.

--------------------

¹- The most immediately noticeable case is with Yūregian undead, which are technically not alive but also aren't fully dead. A Yūregian necromancer can raise a body if it's intact enough, but on the soul end, the closer a Yūregian soul gets to reaching the quota, the harder it is to raise them into undeath. If the soul manages to meet the quota, they can no longer be raised as The White fully severs the connection between the Lower Planes and Realms of Death. However, this almost never happens as necromancers are fast acting enough to prevent a soul from being in the Plateau for more than a week. As to whether the necromancers know of the Plateau, the memories of it are wiped from the undead individual and are restored temporarily each time they return to it.

²- Tilemgians may become the first exception to this as they are now semi-mortal after the Tearing of Boriasonde, so it's possible that a few that don't end up ceasing to exist after death will end up in the Plateau. Alternatively, the descendant races of them that are scattered throughout existence could reach total mortality close enough that at some point they'd be admitted to the realm as any other mortal race would.

There will be a short story posted at some point that will explain the origins of the Elders, so look out for it! This post will be linked to it too.

--------------------

Taglist for writing-

@aneci

If anyone else would like to join the taglist, feel free to DM me or send in an ask! I will also have a separate taglist for art posts.

This is a note to myself Elementals- foreign beings from the elemental planes Primordials- beings that sprung from Elvaria when elemental energies started bleeding into the world Elementals aren't like fully sentient beings from the view of a regular person, they're more than that but sort of in a lower dimension way(?), like if people think in 3D(concept of length width and depth so having a tangible idea of space and being limited to what can be seen from a point on a 3d object like a globe), elementals think more like 2d where they're missing the idea of "limits" and inherently will not understand strictly 3d concepts unless they fuse with something 3d(so like half elves on Elvaria just think normally but with a different perspective of existence compared to before they became half elves) Abstract ideas to us are not abstract to elementals, that's how they think normally and vice versa with regular beings

They're not quite simple and have different needs than Lower Realm beings so they don't need ideas like distinct cultures or individuality, but rather the desire to spread influence Bringing elemental energies to Elvaria to them was extending a gift to the elves and embracing the world's "potential" as it now had the energy(asurei) to "reach" and break through limits, while the elves at the time saw it as making their problems worse and the elemental energy as bleeding into the world instead of a gift for them to prosper The elves in the modern day think of elementals as cryptic and foreign beings but elemental energies are now widely used and there is definitely more appreciation towards it

Primordials are not that smart and were never meant to be, they're basically when things in the world have the spark of "potential" and elemental energies will seep into them to create a core in something, which will spring out a primordial from similar structures(ie volcanoes created the fire giants but the main core was in Embylviska) Since they lack the kind of spark elementals have, they're very simple and think like animals even if their thoughts are "3d" Half-elementals are right in between, since by technicality they're from the world but were created from outside means that didn't come from the elementals. Their intelligence also varies since it's determined by whoever created them

So what is the "potential"? Honestly I have no idea yet, but for now the idea is ability to adapt or if it's at a certain threshold that makes it distinct from others of the same kind The ability to adapt doesn't necessarily have to have been there from the start, it can be triggered from a specific event that gives everything in the world "potential" and that "potential" will attract elementals to it naturally Not every world in the Lower Realm will have "potential", so not every world has an elemental presence. There still may be elements, but they're just regular elements like in the real world Half elves aren't necessarily elves with more "potential" than others, but rather what's most convenient for an elemental seeking to assimilate because of its core losing energy

I’d best be seeing that anti JKR energy for this twilight show too bc Smeyer continuing to profit off the Quileute tribe is not cute

Universal Lore- Part 1, The High Realms(Spaelcul- Derizaren)

"I do not hide knowledge from my people, the Spaelculans, as there is not much to hide and not much very relevant to the duties we preform in maintaining this existence. "You may think of us as weavers or artisans, if that makes it simpler to understand what we are and what we do. All the fabric and tarps that mortals use for their clothing or tents come from the work of weavers, and the work of artisans give others the ability to build complex structures with the processed goods.

"In the same way societies and civilizations are built on the backs of craftsmen, the elaborate 'tapestry' all celestial bodies rest upon is created by us. This tapestry is very durable, but the fine threads it is built with are still fine threads even when woven together.

"When these threads begin to snap from the "weight" things in existence upon the location possess, it creates gaps that you may know as black holes. These are not created from the natural processes of stars, so they are not true black holes, but rather better described as spatial rifts. They function about the same as black holes, so there is no need to keep that distinction in mind, as you are not one of my people that have the ability to fix such rifts.

"Why I am telling you this?

"To put it simply, we, or rather I, did not always need my own people to aid me in the repairs of spatial rifts. In the many, many past Cycles, I was able to very easily manage the opening and subsequent sealing of the rifts myself. They occurred in very predictable locations and were few and far between that I could anticipate the rifts before they happened. The few that formed in an unexpected location were manageable as well.

"But in this Cycle, for some strange reason, these rifts form in completely absurd locations that I'd never have been able to predict. Locations where across the whole of existence, there is nothing that can feasibly pierce through the plane so violently and suddenly and in multiple locations at once- and I have witnessed the birth and end of an innumerable amount of universes.

"In the first 4 or so billion years of this Cycle, it was random but I could still handle it on my own, though it stretched my presence thin in the later end of that period. I refer to this as the Heralding Eon, a time where it was unusual but it was not a concern to me yet, but I now know it was a warning of more tumultuous times ahead. "By the next 5 billion years, repairing the rifts no longer was a task I could handle alone, and so I looked towards my kin Avaas' creations as inspiration, creating the Spaelculans by imparting traces of my essence into spatial energies.

"Them forming into a reflection of my image was entirely incidental, but my form is best suited to this task, so it was most efficient for them to have the same limb arrangements. After all, you do not see fish or birds weaving the webs of a spider- but to return to the story of why I am in my current predicament and why Derizaren exists...

"My people are not perfect copies of what I am. They were never meant to be, as their duty is to simply weave the threads of space and repair them in the locations where rifts form. They are also to monitor designated spaces that I cannot keep in my peripherals. But of course, the Lower Planes are unable to see the threads that make up the metaphorical tapestry- not the inhabitants being unable to, but that the threads are entirely unviewable in the Lower Planes to anything that is not me.

"They may hold the Lower Planes, but they are in a sort of phase state for the lack of a better term. The threads are formed by spatial energy which is automatically in the phase state, making them only visible through a sort of "screen".

"The realm of Derizaren was only partially made to shelter my people. Its proper purpose is to act as a "screen" that allows my people to directly view each of those strings, and the power I have imparted to my people allows them to perform their duties from there. Very rarely do they ever need to have a physical presence in the Lower Planes, and that is usually either when an Altersaean requires aid or some race that cannot be sheltered in Anarexen has to be sheltered here.

"But we do not shelter any race. We cannot afford to be philanthropists and preservers to beings, only the fabric of space itself. If a race does not contribute in any way to the progression or maintenance of this existence or cannot so much as grasp the information carried by the threads, we do not take them. If they can grasp the flow of information carried by spatial energies, I choose to impart some of my power to them so they become a pseudo-Spaelculan and can contribute to our work. This can, of course, be revoked at any time.

"As to those of the former group, the best and more relevant example would be survivors of the Tearing of Boriasonde. Tilisnet has essentially vanished from this existence somehow, and whatever realm I or Avaas could create is not suitable to the aspect of time that the Tilemgians are, so the most we can do is grant the ones we could find among the Lower Planes and give them sanctuaries in our realm that they may shape to be more habitable to them. But this is not a perfect system, and many more Tilemgians are scattered throughout existence.

"Avaas believes that I should pay some more care towards the Tilemgians, as they are essentially the successors of Tilisnet until he reappears some day. I will admit that without them, time would not be flowing right now and the whole of existence would be stuck in a time loop, indefinitely frozen in time, or collapsing onto itself as the absence of time means the concept of progression and regression disappears, but there is nothing I can do.

"My domain is space, not time, and I and my people are spread thin enough already in this eon I have named the Turbulence Eon. Since the disappearance of Tilisnet, more of the threads of space are breaking and some have even disappeared- I cannot monitor both the Tilemgians and Spaelculans, and Avaas does not tell me anything. What little I know is what my people know as we are spread very thin trying to quite literally be everywhere at once. "Avaas is growing paranoid and irrational, and he does not let me know of anything. From what I can tell by his behaviour, he knows something very critical to the current events, but he doesn't believe it himself and hasn't spoken a word to his people.

"I can respect him as kin, but when this involves one of us disappearing, which has never happened before, I and my people reaching our limits of what we can do to prevent the total collapse of this existence, an entire High Realm collapsing and the survivors being scattered throughout existence, and the Altersaeans not knowing what is going on themselves and following orders blindly- that is where I draw the line. "This is not preservation, this is madness, and this is why I cannot do more. Derizaren and the Spaelculans exist to maintain the fabric of space, nothing more and nothing less, and the fact that I even had to create either is enough to show the state of the Cycle's order right now.

"If this existence continues to last even a billion years more, I would be very surprised and frankly the odds are very close to being zero. There used to be one of us that could likely be able to fix this problem, but I have not seen him since this Cycle was started. He may have disappeared like Tilisnet did, but I would not be able to sense him as he is the embodiment of nothingness, and nothingness does not leave a trace.

"Avaas turns away when I mention the name of the Fourth. This is how I learned for certain that he has been hiding things from me, but as to what, I will never know unless he confesses.

"Forgive me for a tirade unbefitting for a being such as I, for my frustration runs deep-

"But his silence will be our doom- there is no other way to phrase this."

--------------------

Taglist for writing-

@aneci

If anyone else would like to join the taglist, feel free to DM me or send in an ask! I will also have a separate taglist for art posts.

Maps of current day Elvaria, made on Inkarnate.