Happy WBW!

Happy WBW!

💀 - How do people in your world think about the dead after their passing? Do they celebrate them, mourn, or honour them in some way, or are they gone and not mentioned?

🏛️ - Does your world have old buildings? Ruins?

Happy WBW!!! Thank you so much for the ask, @pluttskutt! I'll answer this one for my WIPs Enchanted Illusions and Realms of Loss!

💀 - How do people in your world think about the dead after their passing? Do they celebrate them, mourn, or honour them in some way, or are they gone and not mentioned?

IN ENCHANTED ILLUSIONS:

The treatment of the dead depends/varies on which of the many cultures present in Ansburke we're talking about (though the city's cultural landscape is divided/shared mostly between humans and Myths - magical beings - there are many cultures within those groups, and many different kinds of Myths, from faeries to vampires and even banshees).

The most predominant ways people think about/treat the dead in the city of Ansburke are very similar to the way people viewed/treated the dead in the 1800s, and in some aspects, even in the modern day. There are funerals and mourning rites (which, again, vary according to which fictional human or Myth culture the person hails from), as well as some celebrations - during which the deceased's loved ones may or may not invoke a deity/god to protect the spirit of the who died while on their way to the afterlife.

Most people are buried in graveyards or crypts - much like the ones we know today - though some prefer to be cremated and put into urns. In Ansburke, most common funeral choices and rites are similar to those commonly associated with the actual IRL Victorian period, especially regarding the "grieving etiquette" and rules, but there are some very unique alternatives too.

For example, in this world, Selkies and Kelpies return their dead loved ones to the sea - since they themselves are born in the sea, respecting the cycle of life is crucial for their spirits to properly pass on and it is sacred to their kind. Selkies and Kelpies believe that when the deceased person's soul reaches the open sea again that spirit may be reborn in the next 100 or so years.

Vampires - or at least those who are born vampires, not turned - consider death an unfathomable tragedy (since they are supposed to live forever, being killed certainly seems unnatural to them), and often mourn their dead loved ones for centuries or even eternity. They guard their loved one's final resting ground viciously and do not take kindly to uninvited guests trespassing on their crypts, even if by accident. To vampires, the death of one of their kind is a crime that must never be forgiven.

Faeries/Fey Folk hold huge parties/celebrations in memory of the deceased, during the days and even weeks after the funeral. In their ceremonies, they typically light an enchanted kind of lantern that can burn bright for weeks, lighting the sky of the vicinities like multicolored stars.

As in IRL, most people in Ansburke continue honoring their dead and keeping that person's memory alive in special ways that mean something to them.

In the main cast, for example, Cailean Telkerly, a half-selkie, collects and fixes broken pocket watches as a sort of remembrance for his dead older brother, who really loved his job as a clockmaker's apprentice. Another example is Marcus Kallihan, who lights a special candle every year on his deceased parents' wedding anniversary.

IN REALMS OF LOSS -

Now this is where things get tricky to explain, but here we go. In the world of Realms of Loss, most of the continent has been ravaged by a curse that even the Far Reach's wall can't keep at bay. So, a common - and very much warranted - fear amongst the population is that the dead won't quite stay dead or may become easy vessels for the corruption to consume/dominate. Thus, the most common funeral rite is creating the deceased on a funeral pyre (sometimes just a pyre, other times a boat, much like a Viking's funeral), to prevent the curse from adhering to the now-dead body. Details regarding the mourning period, size of the pyre or even duration of the ceremony depends on the person's social class - peasants may have a simple funeral pyre with materials they can acquire from the woods or afford to buy, while royalty has entire ceremonies and celebrations tied to their funeral and usually have tremendously large pyres. After the death of the King or Queen, it is tradition for the entire kingdom to go into a mourning period for around two weeks, and there are laws to ensure this time is honored.

When it comes to it, however, on the kingdoms of Avillore or Sarythea, no matter the person's status, accomplishments, or power, they all become ash in the end - as no one wants to become a soulless husk wandering the Lost Lands for eternity.

Another important aspect - since the Celestial Courts have such a prominent role in the kingdom's daily existence and are worshipped far and wide, someone might request a blessing from a specific Celestial their deceased loved one worshipped in life. And on some special rare occasions, the Celestial might actually give their blessing to the person.

🏛️ - Does your world have old buildings? Ruins?

Both the worlds of Realms of Loss and Enchanted Illusions have plenty of ruins (especially in Realms of Loss, where much of the continent's former glory has been worn down by time and war), or at least buildings that fell into disuse/abandonment. Many of those ruins play some kind of role in the story or at least are explored by the Main Characters in some way - for example, in Enchanted Illusions, Thaddeus found an abandoned fortress in the catacombs of Ansburke and refurbished it to be the headquarters of his operation.

Six Sentence Sunday

I was tagged by @pluttskutt, (here)! Thank you so much for the tag!

Here's a snippet from Enchanted Illusions!

"I told ya the Mayor don't mess around" Sam chuckled, peering out of the boat's cabin as the duo raced down the pier faster than he ever thought he'd see them run. Behind them, he could hear the shots fired from the manor grounds they'd just broken out of. Before he could say anything else, Augustus cut him short with a shriek, basically leaping from the pier to the deck as Harriet followed suit, stumbling. "Start the boat! Stop talking and start the damn boat!!!" "Okay, okay, calm down fancypants. Let's go."

Tagging (gently): @starlit-hopes-and-dreams, @lassiesandiego, @tabswrites, @illarian-rambling, @little-peril-stories, @clairelsonao3, @sam-glade, @cowboybrunch, @lola-theshowgrl and @oh-no-another-idea

When you finally get to the scene you’ve been waiting to write

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday!

How prevalent is 'foreign' culture, in any of its forms from cuisine to media, in one society in your Setting? How well do its members take foreign people living amongst them?

Happy WBW! Thank you so much for the ask, @thetruearchmagos! I'll answer this one for Enchanted Illusions!

How prevalent is 'foreign' culture, in any of its forms from cuisine to media, in one society in your Setting? How well do its members take foreign people living amongst them?

This is one of the core themes of my WIP Enchanted Illusions actually! A lot of the worldbuilding and story elements hinge on the fact that, before the main story, humans and Myths (magical creatures, such as faeries, elves, vampires, werewolves, etc) had been trapped in a bloody war that spanned generations, until they came to a truce and peace treaty a couple of centuries ago. Thus, the capital city of Ansburke became a symbol of this newfound peace between both humans and Myths, a melting pot for all of their cultures to converge, ushering in a new era of progress and peace into their world - or so it should have been.

The problem is, that resentment and prejudice were still present amidst some very influential parts of the population - especially some humans who still saw Myths as monsters that should be kicked out of the city. And while the city did become a place where both humans and myths could coexist in peace and find new ways to make a better future, some of those prejudiced people still remained, and little by little they fed the disorder and prejudice amongst common people, looking to profit off of the chaos of another civil war. This is the origin of the villains, the dreadful Hemlock Society who seeks to eradicate myths and ""save humanity"" (which is basically their euphemism for becoming tyrannical dictators). Those villains have spent a lot of time undermining the foundations of peace in their city, and the heroes/protagonists of the story will have to race against time to prevent the Hemlock's Society corrupted plans from coming to fruition.

In a general sense, however, when we're not talking about the structural prejudice of the city of Ansburke and the villains seeking to create chaos from it, the relationships between humans and the mythical beings (since the city of Ansburke is said to have been founded by humans, myths are considered a foreign culture - many of the myths hail from other kingdoms or villages such as the Faery Courts or the Firstgrove cities, where the banshees, werewolves and elves come from. Some vampiric clans, however, have existed in Ansburke under human radar since long before the peace treaty, only now they do get to live openly as vampires and not hide) are pretty chill for the most of it. Magic is a part of daily life as common as can be in the day-to-day lives of the citizens of Ansburke, with magical creations sometimes replacing human inventions (In Ansburke most of the tech comes from a mix of science and magic, there's nearly no exceptions to that rule. e.g Instead of electricity as a light source - for the most part - they have an infinite magical light source, which is basically enchanted sunlight stored in tubes connected to the lamps and candelabras of most richer establishments)

Because magic and science became so entwined, the city of Ansburke is actually more technologically advanced and steampunk than the actual 1800s period it is inspired in.

Humans and Myths co-exist in the same city, as much as the villains try to make it otherwise, peacefully since the truce was settled. There are sirens singing in cabaret bars, a faerie who owns a baking shop, basilisks/gorgons as hairdressers, vampire physicians who have collected a vast amount of knowledge through their eternal lifetime, Shapeshifters who use their talents for acting, and even a Banshee trying to become a painter (this Banshee character is actually a part of the main cast! his name is Oisian and he is a close friend of the MCs, especially Agatha and Harriet). They're very much an integral part of the city, and at this point are the source most of Ansburke's true culture and magic.

That underlying tension in the mind of the few humans who haven't been able to let go of the war or get over it and accept each other's differences to live with other people in peace, is the perfect target for the Hemlock Society's villains to exploit, so - by the end of the book - tensions get so high that the risk of a civil war is actually true.

best ship dynamic is when they go from "you fool" (derogatory) to "you fool" (desperate)