Happy Super Late WBW!

Happy super late WBW!

Tell me 5 fun facts about the magic users in your WIP!

~ @tabswrites

Happy Late Worldbuilding Wednesday - or Storyteller Saturday today lol. Thank you for the Ask, @tabswrites!

Tell me 5 fun facts about the magic users in your WIP!

In Agrannor, you're only considered a "Mageborn" if you are born with magic within your blood, as a part of your being and very nature. If you're not born with that but have a magical affinity (the ability to learn magic and cast it through enchanted objects) you're a Sorcerer.

Forbidden magic is a different concept from Dark Magic. In Agrannor, Dark Magic is defined as an inherently corrupted/twisted manifestation of Pure Magic. Forbidden Magic are certain spells cast from normal magic, whose effects are not considered ethical, but which do not necessarily stem from dark magic - that is up to the caster. Examples of Forbidden Magic are certain entrapment spells (when they trap a soul in the limbo), some more brutal killing spells, and of course, necromancy. In The Last Wrath, Elyren Tyrvommira (a young elven sorcerer obsessed with necromancy and the study of life and death) and Cyprian Naras (a vengeful human Mageborn) are known for their regular use of Forbidden Magic/Spells, though they rarely use dark magic (Elyren considers it an unnecessary risk, but he would use it. Cyprian views dark magic as an abomination and solely sticks to forbidden magic instead.)

Mageborn children - though already born with magic - often manifest their powers at a very early age too (ranging from a few days after birth to around six years old, though some late bloomers can even manifest their powers around 10 years old, but that is very rare). Their powers usually take after that of their parents or clans, though since their magic is still wild/raw matter (they're born with magic in general, and "what kind of magic" is usually shaped by the child's experiences and surroundings), their powers can still adapt or become something entirely different. Children with milder magical affinity (future sorcerers) do not manifest powers but may be able to connect with magical artifacts and use that magic.

Family units are a much wider concept within Mageborn and Elven cultures, as they believe that the family you choose is just as important as the family of your blood (as in, a family doesn't necessarily stop at who you're related by blood but is also who you choose). Adoption is very common within Mageborn groups - and there isn't as much distinction between an adopted child and a biological one in their culture, they're family and that is what matters.

Mageborn have many traditional festivals, holidays, and celebrations in general, and each of those varies according to the region they live in, their creed, and alliances.

WRITEBLR BATTLE ROYALE - Ophelia vs. Julyan Full Fight!

Hi, there! I am taking part in @your-absent-father's amazingly fun event, Writeblr Battle Royale, where I and other cool writeblrs choose our most powerful OCs and make them fight in an interdimensional arena. It's chaotic, it's badass, and more importantly, it is FUN (:<

Important: These events are not canon to our stories! They're just something very cool we as writers have decided to subject our characters to, for the sake of writing practice and Fun tm, though it is completely unrelated to our projects and the characters' actual experiences in the books.

Check out the rules and other amazing fight scenes at @writeblrbattleroyale!

In this fight, my young Sunscryer Mageborn, Julyan Ashiren, fights against Ophelia, a magical girl and shapeshifter (character from @the-arigen) in the event's arena.

“Welcome to the battle my dear audience. Welcome to the bloodshed. I am M, your humble game master. In front of me are our contenders. Their weapons are in front of them. The enemy is on their opposite. Their only way out is either killing their opponent or dying. These two are a very interesting duo. I just can’t wait for the show.”

It was hardly the first time Ophelia had ended up somewhere she didn’t want to be, but the massive headache was new… especially because she hadn’t actually needed to have a head, these past six months. A quick inventory of the area showed no signs of attacks from the young man on the opposite side. He was fairly tall, human-looking, with all of the typical limbs, a standard skin color, and normal-looking strawberry-blond hair tied into a long ponytail. The overcoat was interesting, but the rest of it– ruffled sleeves, black pants, leather boots– she’d already practiced. The most distinguishing feature seemed to be something like tattoos on his hands, red-gold lines that she’d need to see closer up.

On the other side, Julyan blinked open his eyes, feeling a little nauseous. He wasn’t at home and he knew for sure he didn’t portal to wherever this was willingly - which was bad, very bad. He looked around, trying to figure out where he was. An arena, by the looks of it, though it didn’t look like anywhere he’d been before in Agrannor.

There was a young woman standing across from him.

Ophelia carefully managed her gaze so she was just watching him, rather than staring, as she went down the list of her own form. Two arms, two legs, a head. Some of her skin had melted in the transition, returning to the molten silvery substance that had become so natural to her, but it was mostly hidden underneath the parts of her shifted to look and feel like clothing, which were still correctly assigned. She felt a small glimmer of pride at the best teleport-recovery she’d managed in weeks, patching up her form even as she spoke.

“Hello? Is… well, does anyone have a good idea of what’s going on?”

Julyan didn’t know her, so he quickly did a discreet once over, checking for weapons, or any sign that she could be working for the Secret Court. When he found neither, Julyan immediately felt a wave of relief, only then taking in the other details.

She was average height, around as tall as his little sister, with dark skin and long hair, though her eyes struck him as strange, a glowing silver hue, almost the same color as her attire.

Is she a mage too? Who is she? He thought to himself, but didn’t voice.

Julyan noticed that she seemed to be watching him, uncertain. Gently, he tried to make his posture more friendly and non-threatening. It wouldn’t do to unnecessarily provoke the anger of the person who was trapped in this arena with him.

Julyan thought. No, he had no clue what had happened. One moment he was walking home, the other, he was here. He hadn’t even been using magic or anything of the sort. This was positively confusing to him, too. Of one thing, however, he was certain. He needed to find a way to go back home, his siblings needed him alive. So the quicker and smoother this situation came to an end, the better.

He cleared his throat, only a bit, as if to catch her attention.

“Um, hello,” Julyan called out. He found himself tempted to give a small wave, but ultimately decided against it. “To answer your question, I know as much as you do. I don’t really know what precisely is happening, nor do I know why.”

He awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, looking around, then back at her. The young mage took a tentative step forward, not wanting to be too sudden.

“I believe we haven’t been properly introduced.” He began, trying to keep his voice at an even tone, even though he was about as anxious as he could get. “My name is Julyan Ashiren, so hi.” He does the small wave he’d held back earlier. “And, um, who might you be?”

She smiled in response. “You caught me in uniform, so you may call me Magical Girl Mirrorwoven or Ophelia.”

His confusion was interesting to her, both putting her worries about it being a planned assassination to rest and bringing a much wider conspiracy into play. That… she hesitated to think of the collection of shadows that was M as a person, but he definitely wasn’t a Nihilus… was almost certainly at fault, but his ability to teleport her here meant that a lot of other people were also at threat. The exact reasons were unclear, but the missing squad-sight in her vision meant that Casey and Elysia were probably not involved.

That’s good. I just wish I had some way… Ophelia thought, looking up towards M and then back at Julyan. “Do you have an escape method?”

Julyan hesitated. He hadn’t thought about that. Did he have an escape method? No. he did not, Julyan realized. He didn’t even know where he was, and he was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t even in Agrannor. Gods, he just wanted to go home.

But how?

Julyan looked up at the young woman - Ophelia, he reminded himself - and shook his head. “No, unfortunately, I don’t.” He followed her gaze, only now realizing that the person who’d announced this tournament was standing above them, watching, behind the parapets of the arena’s tallest wall. Julyan suppressed a shudder, but quickly turned his attention back to Ophelia.

“What do we do now?”

“According to him,” Ophelia said, trying to keep her voice steady for him, “we fight. Well, one of us dies, at least. Fighting is the usual way to achieve that, but hardly the only one.” His shudder at the announcer… is he a civilian?

That would make this much more complicated. She was supposed to save civilians, not kill them. But she also had no idea how long she’d be here, or whether the winner was going home at all. If they weren’t, and a civilian was put up against a Nihilus, her dying here would have achieved nothing. If she even could.

The thought occurred only at the end, and she almost winced. No fire in the arena, nor electricity or endless void nor ice nor acid… if he was a civilian, she’d need to ask whether he preferred to starve or for her to kill him.

Julyan winced. “Fight…?” He started, voice hesitant but not shaky, just slightly appalled. He’d heard the announcer quite well, but he was hoping there was another option.

“Is there not another way?” Julyan asked, half-hopeful, though he knew the answer. Not that he was afraid, though his opponent seemed like she could more than hold her own in a fight. Violence wasn’t something he wanted or liked, and he’d lived through his fair share already. He sighed, nervously wringing his hands together for a brief moment, before resigning himself to waiting for her inevitable response.

Ophelia grimaced in response. “If you had been placed here with someone else, perhaps we could wait until one of us starves. As it stands? I… can’t. An unfortunate consequence of this.” She waved her left arm through the air, momentarily loosening her control so the limb extended, losing its shape and color to the undifferentiated silver whip-shape before putting it back.

“I don’t have any particular way out, either. If I did, we would both be out of here as soon as I could manage.”

Starve… The word echoed through his mind like a bad omen. He was no stranger to the pain of hunger and starvation. When he heard the word, it sent a familiar jolt of terror down his spine.

Plus, he couldn’t die and leave his siblings alone - he promised he wouldn’t do that. He needed to come home, alive.

“I can’t do that.” He answered. “I won’t starve to death, I… I know how much hunger hurts, and I won’t do it again. Not if I can help it. I can’t let myself die in here. I have a family, my younger siblings. They need me. I can’t do this to them.”

Julyan took a step forward, a fatalistic look in his eyes, and shakily reached under his overcoat, hesitating for a moment as his slender fingers grasped the handle of his dagger, hidden by the worn-out clothes.

“You need to understand. I don’t have this choice.” He paused, looking her in the eye with genuine sorrow as he aimed the sharp weapon. “I’m so sorry.”

A dagger. He’s going to try to kill me with a dagger. Ophelia thought, sighing internally. He didn’t look like the type to believe her when she said it wasn’t going to be enough. He deserved something of a chance, but if he didn’t have any other weaponry it was going to be very awkward to explain.

“Neither of us does.” Ophelia said calmly, then ran towards him, keeping her human shape primarily but turning her arm into a blade almost as long as her body was tall, swinging down at him in a diagonal slash.

Julyan barely had time to block her blow, moving his dagger upwards to hold his guard up, and stumbling backwards. When she hit, it wasn’t that hard for him to stand his ground. This went on for a while, her longer reach not nearly enough to overcome his greater skill. Growing impatient, he weaved his way through her attacks with practiced ease, stepping sideways to parry a poorly-placed diagonal strike, before moving to slash at her side, opposite her guard. But there, instead of meeting blood and bone, his sword cut across a strange mixture underneath that looked like molten silver.

What is this? Taken aback, Julyan stared at it in confusion, forgetting to even step away from his opponent as he tried to figure out what the hell was happening. If my weapon doesn’t hit her or cause any harm, then I will have to figure out another plan. But how? Can I find a way out? No… His mind wandered on as he leveled his blade at her, urging her to keep her distance and not try anything, ready to continue fighting if she pressed an attack.

Ophelia stepped back with him, matching his distance. “Another consequence. You could stab me all you like, but it would hardly make a difference. To actually do any damage… I need to be denatured. Acid, radiation, molecular-level destruction. Fire. Without those? I can’t die.” She smiled at him, sadly. “Whether I would like to or not.”

Julyan took a hesitant step back, not lowering his sword as he listened to the harrowing information she’d just divulged. She couldn’t die from knife wounds, which made this even worse than it already was. Fire. The word echoed in his mind. She could be killed by fire. Julyan grimaced, managing to hold back the instinctive shake of his head. He had the power. There was fire - sunfire, to be precise - running through his very blood. It didn’t mean he liked to use it, or that he could guarantee his control over it. He hated using his fire to fight, the charred remains in the aftermath were always a sight he could never truly banish from his mind. Sunfire was an awful way to die.

But Julyan knew he didn’t really have a choice. Not if he wanted to win this, and get through alive. If this was what he had to do, so be it. He sighed, carefully sheathing the dagger. He hoped he wouldn’t accidentally melt it when the true fighting started. This dagger had been difficult to make.

“Fine. Godsdamn, fine.” He muttered, under his breath. Why is it always, every single damn time, the unpleasant route? Did I upset a random pantheon or something? No, no, that’s just my luck, isn’t it? At his side, the runic markings in his hands start to glow, bright and dangerous like molten gold. He took a deep breath, looking up to the sky as if willing himself to have patience, before fixing his stance. Julyan looks up at her. “Let’s just get this over with.”

His hands lighting up drew Ophelia’s attention for a second, and she made her decision. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve been holding back as much as you have.” Already away from melee as she was, she didn’t need to bother making distance… not that she would have had to, anyways. The human form was what required a constant effort to maintain.

So she just… let go.

Her entire body, head to toe and including the gown she was wearing, rippled in a wave of mirror-bright silver as she split in two, then again, then once more– each copy as large as the original had been, though hollow on the inside, and now a bright silver shadow more than a defined person. Then, they started running to surround Julyan, striking toward him in turns while he started back.

Julyan took a couple of stumbling steps backward, blinking rapidly as the person before him just… split. Into a dozen copies all around him. With a frown, he hesitantly regarded the silvery forms now moving toward him, disturbingly. He barely remembered that she was probably expecting an answer to what she’d just said.

“… I had hoped it wouldn’t um, come to this, because Gods I hate doing what I am about to do, so much”. Julyan stammered, a tired bored bitterness to his voice, trying to piece together a coherent answer after what he’d just witnessed. He winced internally. Oh, this is about to be one of those days that just hurt like hell. As the weirdly-formed weapons made of… whatever she was, shot closer, he closed his eyes for a moment and brought his arms protectively over his face as a wall of fire surrounded him, sweeping into a growing spiral of sunfire that boxed out the offending weaponry.

No longer bothering with the facade of normality, Ophelia’s duplicates distended their legs and bodies to take impossible steps, arms shifting mid-swing to strike from strange angles in-between the whirling fire. Not that it seemed to be helping much. Even the ones that got through, managing to make contact with his body, had their edges burned away by the heat rippling across his skin.

Julyan stood his ground as his opponent attacked, burning away any of the weapons she threw his way, careful to keep the perimeter of fire wide enough to defang the sharpest of them, but restricted just enough that he would not lose control. Still, some of her strangely-shaped weapons managed to get through the barrage of fire around him, and though they were, luckily, dull and blunt by the time they reached him, it still hurt. Like getting pelted with rocks.

Wincing, Julyan stepped away from the incoming attacks, though they were rather relentless and he found himself growing distracted with each hit, his control over the flames becoming slightly more fickle.

Screw this, He thought, after barely stepping away from another rather painful hit. Julyan focused on the copies of her that surrounded him insistently, annoyance growing as they continuously tried to get through to him.

Taking a deep breath, Julyan focused solely on the sunfire he was casting, strengthening his control. The spiral glows brighter, almost blinding, as he wills the flames to burn hotter, and the spiral to widen, engulfing the copies closest to him.

They’re going to keep coming at him, he knows. Careful not to lose any of the protective spirals around him, he starts shooting out more calculated, careful attacks - like long arrows of fire reaching out to the copies farther from him, finally doing a true attack of his own.

While his attacks had proved useful, it had taken Julyan a while until he was able to burn hot enough so that the copies couldn’t hit him at all, and at this point, everything was starting to ache a bit - though he didn’t know whether it was from overusing his powers, or from the weapons’ prior attacks. Likely both.

Sidestepping a lucky strike from one of the shadows, he shot a bolt of sunfire towards one of the larger copies’ head, which had been floating above, behind the others, observing more than participating. The head split in a moment, allowing it to sail through harmlessly.

Ophelia whistled, and the myriad duplicates of herself shot a part of themselves at their closest neighbors, bringing their thoughts, memories, and adaptation back into the whole. Not even a chance, that way, and he might notice. Collating the experiences of her other selves had her shift a much larger spear to shoot out from her stomach, aimed at the right side of his chest, then moved towards him again, modifying herself into a low cross between a cheetah-like lower four legs and a hollow, human upper body for the extra legs and maneuverability.

As Ophelia dodged his attack, Julyan watched as his opponent’s copies came together, morphing and twisting into one once again. Narrowing his eyes, his breath hitched as he saw it turn into a spear - which shot towards him at remarkable speed, aimed at the side of his chest.

With not much time to think, Julyan pulled at the flames in the spiral around him, quickly shifting them all towards his front, and blasting a large wall of fire between him and the incoming spear. It was insistent, and terribly strong, and Julyan could see that it would get through his fire sooner than later. He forced it to burn stronger, as hot as he could muster without losing control, as his mind raced to find a solution.

Come on! Okay, what was that spell, what was it - Oh, yes, right, holding runes. Now, if I remember this correctly…

Keeping one of his hands pushed forward, holding up the burning wall of fire in front of him, he freed his other hand to draw the runic signs in the air, the glowing red runes appearing and quickly, agonizingly rearranging in front of him. Remembering the correct words in ancient magespeak took a couple of tries, as his mind had started to get fuzzy, the intense heat he’d surrounded himself with beginning to take its toll in the form of confusion.

But he got it right, and the runes moved to surround the spear, which was insistently pushing though the wall of fire before him. They latched onto the silvery material, holding it in place right in the middle of the burning flames, and just a few centimeters away from him.

After a couple of seconds, the weapon started to burn away, disintegrating into nothing in the searing heat. The smell was vaguely sweet, and though it did not make him as nauseous as it might have otherwise, it wasn’t exactly pleasant.

Though it was a mere instant until it was completely burned away, Julyan could feel his fire twist toward strangeness, slipping away from his control like sand through an hourglass. When the last sliver of the weapon dissipated into the air, he took a stumbling step forward, trying to steady himself.

A sudden surge of his own sunfire washed over him, and Julyan winced, closing his hands into fists, closer to him, tightly gritting his teeth as he willed himself to control it. Across from him, on the other side of the arena, Julyan saw his opponent changing form once again, turning into a vague centaur-like shape, with long slender legs, though it still looked more like a shadow than anything else. There was something off about it that Julyan couldn’t help but feel unsettled about.

She charged toward him, just as fast as any of her prior attacks. Shaking away the fire-induced haze from his head, Julyan braced himself for what was to come.

“You’re really quite good at this,” Ophelia said, forming the words with part of her even as she searched for a way through the fire. In a lot of ways, the fight was already decided. She didn’t have much of anything that could get through without sacrificing a part of herself to do it, and anything that did would need to be the sort of brutal that she hadn’t used against anything but the toughest Nihilus, let alone a person. A quick strike down the center was almost immediately followed from his left side as she dropped the moving form, surrounding him in a ring.

As his opponent’s ever-shifting form surrounded him, Julyan was careful enough not to let his fire waver, nor cool down, as she began actively striking him from multiple directions, though he kept the flames smaller, and therefore more manageable. He tilts his head slightly at her compliment.

“Well, I have to be.” He answered, dodging another one of her piercing strikes. None were quite strong enough to get through his fiery defense, but he wasn’t about to take any chances, even if the fire was becoming a bit too much to handle.

“There are weaknesses, of course, but so difficult for me to exploit.” She stabbed out from three different places, two that he would be able to see and one at the small of his back.

His vision swam a little as he spun around, but he saw the two different spear-like shapes breaking away from the ring to shoot towards his chest. Pushing forward a smaller wall of fire to hold them both away simultaneously, he failed to notice the third one coming up behind him until a sharp pain scraped the small of his back. He cried out, briefly.

Shit! I shouldn’t have dropped the spiral, shouldn’t have. A surge of sunfire promptly surrounded him from all sides, burning away the weapon that had managed to strike him. He felt warm blood trickle down his back before it too sizzled to a stain, but thankfully the wound felt like it was on the smaller side. He had just gotten very lucky.

I’m going to die here, Ophelia realized. Well. Hardly the first time.

The fire, now surrounding him from all sides, was pushing the point where it would be impossible to maintain his control over it, and the heat was starting to become far too much to handle, at least while conscious. Knowing he was running out of time, Julyan decided to put an end to this fight. He sighed, looking at the ring around him, hoping that she could understand him.

“Are you not…” Julyan paused, as if reconsidering his question, before continuing, voice hesitant. “… afraid to die? Do you not feel pain?”

Ophelia felt the question more intensely than any of the burns had managed. It wasn’t that they hadn’t hurt, but that was the sort of pain she was accustomed to. She pulled all of her material– now noticeably diminished by the flames, though not yet at the point where she couldn’t mimic colors effectively– back into the facsimile of humanity she tried to maintain.

“Pain? All of it. Every time, from each and every one of the copies as they become part of me again.” It was true enough, though somewhat ignoring the actual reality that each and every one of those copies was her, experiencing the pain for the first time when they were burned and again when they recombined with her main body. She stopped for a moment, taking a breath she didn’t need to steady herself.

“But fear? Fear is an old flame. We don’t speak much anymore, and always of old times.” She stared at Julyan for a moment. “We all know how this is going to go.”

Julyan watched, eyes narrowed, as Ophelia once again morphed back into a human form, standing right in front of him once again and calmly answered his question.

For a moment, he found himself wishing she hadn’t turned back to her human shape. Knowing what he would have to do only made it that much more difficult to accept. But he knew it was, probably, for the best.

As Ophelia explained that she did feel pain, though fear was a distant reality, he frowned slightly. Julyan could not imagine what that must be like - to not be afraid anymore, be it of death and oh, so much worse. It sounded like both a blessing and a curse wrapped into one. He really didn’t know how to feel about it, especially in the scenario they found themselves in.

With the heat of his own fire starting to make him feel rather feverish and borderline drowsy, Julyan just wanted it over with. The less he had to think about what he was going to - what he had to do - the quicker this would be finished. Still, nothing about this felt right.

At all.

Ophelia struck, throwing all of her remaining mass into two real attacks and half a dozen hollow fragments meant only to draw his attention, and Julyan let go. All his fire now flowed freely in every direction, dancing around him taller than any of the flames he’d purposefully cast before, as the waves of fire washed over the arena and engulfed his opponent completely. Julyan closed his eyes, growing dizzy as the world around him became a muffled roar of impossible glare.

He wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed when he blinked his eyes open again. It stung to open his now-dry eyes, and it took some time for his sight to painstakingly adjust to the lack of heat. His ears were ringing, and his skin was so hot he may as well have rolled on a lava field. He didn’t like that at all.

Puffs of smoke rose from his shoulders, and though his fire-resistant clothes were still intact, Julyan could smell the singed fabric, which had worn out at the edges and ripped at some small seams.

Overall, the attire still fared better than most of his clothes back home.

For a moment, he dreaded the sight he thought would greet him once he looked up at the arena, but his opponent was nowhere in sight. It was just him, standing in an empty concrete arena whose stone walls had been charred black.

Completely alone.

I won. I really won… Julyan thought. He felt a wave of relief wash over him, but at the same time, there was a terrified feeling building up in his chest. He was one step closer to going home, to keeping his promise to stay alive. But he’d also just killed someone.

Not knowing what to think, or what to do, plus feeling like he was dunked into boiling water for an hour, Julyan just sat down on the floor of the arena, trying to take up as little space as possible.

And waited. He wasn’t sure he was ready for whatever came next, but he knew that at least his powers were - for better or for worse. That was something the world never seemed to let him forget.

Happy WBW! How do people store their food in your WIP? Do they have refrigerators? Do they need to salt and preserve their meats? What about things like dairy and other perishables? Tell me all about it!

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday! Thank you for the Ask, @writernopal!

This is my favorite type of worldbuilding question, lol, because it means I get to nerd out about highly specific aspects of my WIPs. Brace yourself for a thorough explanation because the answer is, as always when it comes to The Last Wrath, IT VARIES, a lot, lol.

How do people store their food in your WIP? Do they have refrigerators? Do they need to salt and preserve their meats? What about things like dairy and other perishables? Tell me all about it!

Okay, so, as I said before in this post, this answer actually varies a lot depending on the question: "Where are you in Agrannor?"

Because oh boy, does that continent have varying climates, geographic formations, and cultures that directly affect the way each of its residents store and preserve food.

If you live in the colder extremities of Agrannor, like Kestrall, some parts of the Morosyn Empire, or the northernmost and southernmost edges of the Borderlands:

These regions (and I mean ESPECIALLY Kestrall) hold freezing cold temperatures, for most of the year. Kestrall is a snow-clad mountain range with little to no summer, some parts of the Morosyn Empire are cold and wet throughout most of the year and dry and freezing in the other half of the year, while the Edge of the Borderlands (called the "wildlands") are foggy moorlands and forests that are, almost always, either raining/muddy or snowed over.

So you get the picture, it is cold. Very cold.

This is relevant to this topic for one important thing: food goes bad faster in the heat, as we all know. Plus, since these regions are so close to such extreme sources of cold almost year-round, it is pretty easy to store food at home without much to worry about. The weather is cold, and there is always enough ice to go around for pantries and ice boxes. If needed, certain cuts of meat can be salted and frozen in the snow and ice outside of the houses, before being stored. And that is without considering one thing the citizens of Agrannor have available that we don't: ✨REAL MAGIC✨

This gives them - at least those who actually use it/cast it themselves or buy potions/runic amulets/enchanted items - the chance to use it in order to make food last way longer than it would naturally. There are plenty of alchemical elixirs, spells, and whatever else, that allow food to be preserved, be it by enhancing the properties of ice and making it last longer, or by actually preserving the food, like modern-day chemicals would.

Milk, especially the fattier and thicker kinds, like that of the Blue-Tinted Mountain Goat (in Kestrall), is consumed. A lot. Cheese is consumed too, but it takes a while to make due to the cold climate, and it's mostly reserved as a very occasional delicacy. Chocolate - and magical variations of it - is extremely popular, especially in desserts. Kids growing up in these kingdoms have access to a lot of chocolatey sweets because it's surprisingly very cheap there (the quality is not guaranteed tho, and some do feel less like chocolate and more like something else you can't quite place, like, there's only a whiff of chocolate there) and if you're lucky, it is warm. Plus, if you buy the nicer ones, they're really good. (Now you know why Raelen likes chocolatey sweets so much. Julyan bought a lot of those weird chocolate pies and cakes for that girl while she was growing up, - mainly because he didn't know how to cook that well yet and sweets were cheap, plus it made her happy, and it kinda stuck with her now that she's grown lol)

The Nomadic human tribes of the Borderlands use smoking techniques (with a special mix of magic, certain types of firewood, and condiments) to preserve their food during their long travels.

In most of the Morosyn Empire, however, since magic is restricted to the lucky few who have a permit and the sale of authorized magical elixirs makes them expensive, most people use a combination of techniques to preserve food, using the frosty weather of the winter to their advantage and getting creative in the summers. Ice is carefully stored in sealed ice boxes in the winter season, and the food is usually heavily condimented and smoked to preserve it. The Morosyn Empire is famous for its notoriously spicy/strongly condimented dishes, for this exact reason.

If you live in the more temperate areas of Agrannor, such as most of the centermost kingdoms: Arkellya, Eldon, Midtaren, Nethilor, Etaruze, Faravvia, and Liranthis

Those kingdoms typically can only rely on snow and ice in some of the colder winters, and even then it is not nearly as foolproof. So, they have to get creative. The most varied kinds of alchemical elixirs, potions, curing salts, freezing spells, machinery (only in Liranthis, the city of scholars), and smoking techniques, are perfected here.

Food is usually prepared with freshly collected ingredients every day because it is easier to just eat something that was only recently picked on that specific day than to find the means to preserve it. Farmer's markets are always bustling every day, for this reason. Everything else also falls under his rule: fish are fished from the lakes/rivers on the day they are to be prepared, game meat/venison is often hunted right before the feasts and such (though the remaining meat is salted, smoked, and preserved for later), pastries are baked each day, etc.

Milk is consumed fresh or boiled, on the day it is picked. Cheese is one of the staples of the cuisine of these kingdoms since the climate is favorable to it, and it's pretty much in every dish you can find here so much so that it almost gets boring after a while.

In the hotter/warmer parts of Agrannor (a desert city and the seaside kingdoms): Adrellios, Vellamere, and Meruvvon.

Adrellios is the golden jewel of the Eternal Dunes and the Billowing Desert. This means: it is dry, hot as all hell, and there isn't a twinge of snow in sight. There is a river - Attarah's Tear, said to have been a blessing from the Goddess Attarah herself, protector of desert travelers and mother of the lost - around which the entire city is built, but the river isn't cold - obviously. In this city, food is mostly preserved through: drying it out in the sun (an effective way to keep food preserved, though it changes its texture severely), seasoning/salting it, and, you guessed it, magic. Adrellios is the chief consumer of magical concoctions to preserve foods or keep them cold in the heat of the summer. They are the number one buyer of anything of that nature they can get their hands on, and for good reason.

Vellamere, our beloved seaside kingdom. Though its temperatures are generally milder than Adrellios, and there is no denying that, it still isn't anywhere near as cold as the other kingdoms. It is warm, it's windy and it has a serious humidity issue going on due to its extreme proximity to the sea winds, especially in the summer. They are especially creative when it comes to this topic, buying ice (temporally enchanted so that it won't melt on the travel) from neighboring kingdoms. Since doing this is very expensive, they have found a rather unusual but more practical solution. There are nonpoisonous "enzymes"/properties that are collected from sea monster shells (the all-purpose sea monster shells of Agrannor, lol), and when mixed with sand, and water they create an extremely cold/freezing mixture that won’t heat up for weeks. They use it to coat the inside layer of their "ice boxes" like paint when they build them, covering that layer with more wood and letting it dry. Once dry, it stays cold like nothing else, and food can be safely stored for months, until it wears off and another coat of "paint" is required for the ice box - like a portable freezer. It is used to store food during long-term sea travels or even at home.

Meruvvon, is the maze city by the delta of Agrannor's largest river that flows right into the Lost Sea. Its climate is almost the same as Vellamere's, except that it is often plagued by sea storms (due to its proximity to the Lost Sea, hence the maze-like structures which are basically their version of storm safety methods). Their techniques are very much similar to that of Vellameres, though they do rely a lot more on imported ice trades from other kingdoms and are known for seasoning/salting their food with a local berry known as the Sphynx' Hook, which gives the local cuisine its unmistakable - and highly spicy - taste.

Milk and cheese are huge NOPES in either of these kingdoms, due to the heat (which rots it like nothing else) and (in the case of the seaside ones) their seafood cuisines, which rarely need cheese or milk to accompany them.

Finally, the extras:

The Storm Isles: They have perfected the art of fishing and every day new fishing boats return from the open sea with just enough for another day. They believe in reducing waste/not throwing good stuff away for nothing, so their communities only fish what they need for the day or week. The rare remaining seafood is preserved with local condiments, and put into the same kinds of ice boxes as in Vellamere - the ones with the sea monster shell lining.

Elves believe that if you're going to take something from nature (be it by hunting an animal or picking a plant) you had better not waste it or disrespect the life it once had. Hence, they usually only hunt or collect what they need for each meal, and so don't have much of a need to preserve it, though their magic potions know no bounds and they have tried preserving food before, for some specific recipes. Most of an elf's diet, however, is vegetarian, and they rarely hunt (though they can and do eat meat, that is reserved for very special celebrations, and so most choose not to hunt on normal days).

Faeborn are carnivores/apex predators, like wolves or tigers (they even have rows of wickedly sharp teeth, pointy clawed hands, highly adapted eyesight and heightened sense of smell/hearing), and so they usually hunt what they need or want to eat on a daily basis, they have no need to preserve it for later because there's always more in the forests to hunt when they want more. They do eat the odd plant/fungi/flower but that's only a small snack to their tastes, though they do like tea quite a lot.

Merfolk are extremely similar to that, though they eat fish and keep stacks of preserved clams/crabs and seaweed for lean months under the sea

Vampires/Dhampirs need blood to sate their inhuman amounts of hunger, and while some do drink human blood (the fastest way to sate themselves), most live from the blood of animals such as cattle (you will likely find that even the richest vampire has a herd of sheep or cows in the forest/backyard next to their castle because they need a lot of blood), so they also do not need to preserve food. Dhampirs (half human/half vampires) do eat human food every day - though they still need blood weekly to keep their health up.

tag the oc over 6 ft. tall (~183cm)

🧢 share a snippet about clothes

Thank you for the Ask, @clairelsonao3!

I have some snippets that mention clothes, and though they're not necessarily the main focus clothes certainly play an important role in starting these interactions. I chose two:

(Misunderstandings at the Imperial Masquerade. A bittersweet snippet from Luciya's POV)

They walked into the Great Hall, where the festivities of the week were about to start. Tonight, the Glimmering Waltzes would be the talk of the Capital.

Luciya groaned. “I look like a baby pigeon that fell from a tree. I mean - look at this dress, it’s not even fitted. I’m sure Lady Avaline chose this as a cruel joke, because nothing explains this.” She pouted, looking down at her wonky and bland grey dress and pointing at her unimpressive mask.

Still, she looked just like any of the other maids in the castle, which had technically been her unwanted occupation for a couple of years now. It was supposed to be a good thing, no one could recognize or catch her in this costume, but she still envied those who actually got to enjoy the finest of the festivities she used to dream about. 

“On the bright side, you won’t have everyone looking at your every move like hungry vultures. I feel like a damn preened peacock”  Quinn chuckles, gesturing to all of him. It seemed like there wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t covered in the burdensome myriad of shimmering jewelry that adorned his flowy and gold-trimmed silk clothes. A walking gemstone. 

“You do have a point, but at least you get to look I don't know, pretty.”

The words soured as soon as she spoke them, and Luciya wished she could take them back. She had meant them as a compliment - just hadn’t realized soon enough that she’d chosen the worst one. It’s that specific word, Luciya scolded herself, she should’ve chosen anything else. Quinn blinked a couple times, before he quickly shook his head. He tried to laugh it off, but he had gone paler than the statues around the now bustling great hall.

Pretty thing. She suddenly recalled what Quinn patrons had often called him.

Luciya grimaced, hating herself even more as she remembered that. How could she have forgotten? She had accidentally all but rubbed salt in that fresh wound. More than nothing, she wanted to take her careless previous comment back before she even said it.

“It would seem so,” Quinn answered her previous comment, barely audible through the masquerade’s rising music. The faint touch of bitterness in his voice faded away into a sigh as straightened his posture, placing the party’s golden mask, that had been chosen for him, over his expertly expressionless face. Before she could fix her mistake, her friend continued with his trademark carefully crafted smile.

“Anyways, the party is about to start,” Quinn said out loud, words perfectly smooth despite her recent slip-up. He continued, lowering his voice so that only she could hear what he was about to say. “If our friend’s plan is going to work, this is as perfect of a time as we’re ever going to get. When the masquerade reaches its peak, you’ll slip away to the gardens, unseen. You get to the gardens, give Cassander the information, get that scroll in return, and come back before the last song ends. The Emperor wants the masquerade to last until dawn, so I don’t believe timing will be much of a problem for us.”

Right, there was no time to wallow in feelings or how they looked, Luciya reminded herself. They had work to do, and there were lives on the line. She nodded. 

“I know a small hallway that leads down the palaces. It’s only ever used by the nobles - and the occasional servant - but now that they’re all here, the hallway should be empty. I’ll get in and get out before the songs even finish.”

Quinn nodded at her, a mix of satisfaction and worry where his eyes peeked through the mask. He turned to walk away with a playful flourish. “And I’ll make sure to put up a good show.”

He smirked, and turned away, smoothly walking to his assigned seat at the high tables. 

A curious realization (A snippet from Darian's POV)

Darian could almost feel Seira staring at him but said nothing until his curiosity got the better of him. "What are you doing?" Darian asked, amusedly.

Seira, patted her chin, pensively, before pointing at his cape as they walked.

"Darian, I'm pretty sure my uncle made that cloak." She paused, tugging at the fabric so that she could pull one of the edges closer to her eyes, and hummed. "Yeah, it even has his signature stitch pattern on the velvet trim. Interesting."

Darian huffed out a chuckle. "Wait, are you serious? Let me see." He leaned closer to the edge of the cloak she was holding up, finally recognizing the patterns. "I'll be damned... I never even realized that."

"Well, well, well, would you look at that," Seira smiled warmly, throwing an arm over her friend's shoulder "It seems our Rebel Boy got clothes made by the finest and most highbrow tailor in all of the Free Realms."

She laughed. "Oh, I would pay to see the look on his face if my uncle ever found out the rebel heir was his number one client. Oh, that would've been precious to witness."

Darian looked at her, a sly smirk on his face as he giggled.

"What can I say, I am a man of good tastes."

Seira shook her head playfully. "I'm glad to see you haven't changed a bit in the past three years."

In front of them, Lukan looked over his shoulder, almost stumbling into a moving cart. "Would you two focus? You're going to make me make a wrong turn and lose the address - and then we'll have a real problem on our hands. Be more careful and less loud."

Darian felt Seira snort out a laugh. "Since when did you get so bossy, Luk?" She asked playfully, though Darian noticed her moves becoming more cautious, like Lukan had suggested.

Lukan didn't turn around. "Ever since you dragged me into this city which I'd rather forget." The mercenary answered drily, before looking around, talking to himself. "... Now if we continue through here - No, wait, there. Yeah, that's it. How can one place change so much in so few years, my Gods...?"

Seira nudged Darian, who was staring concernedly at their unwitting guide's struggle to figure out where they should go from here. "Don't worry, he usually gets it right after a few tries - well most of the time."

It is now a skull with crossbones. Not nearly as triggering as that MF clown that was staring into my soul with a vengeance, so that's a plus.

Still distracting as hell (OCD go brrr), and it impairs the ability to like posts (as in, you have to scroll all the way down so that you don't click the skull's square perimeter - which it has for some cursed reason - instead of, you know, the like button). Thanks, I hate it ✨

2023: missives from desktop tumblr suggest that per the latest update my mutuals are being hunted by some kind of grotesque clown. staff assure us this is driven by user feedback.