archyvist-sky

[archyvist-sky]

Dorhin Social Studies and History I

The humanoids of Dorhin

Dorhin is home to many different intelligent humanoids. The most noteworthy are those that have founded the eighteen countries of the continent. Those are also the ones that are most likely to become adventurers or "heroes". There are however many other more or less intelligent more or less humanoid species, living in countries or the wilderness. During the following lessions we will take a quick look at the different countries in order of age.

The Tribes of Somrol

Somrol is the oldest of all countries on Dorhin existing during all recorded history. This is the land of Trolls, huge, hulking humanoids with skin of stone and hair and teeth of metal. Trolls regularly measure more than three meters (about 10 feet) tall, and are built similar to gorillas with long arms and short legs. Their skin can be any type of rock or mineral, however some of them are a lot more common than others, with the excruatingly rare crystalline Trolls often being celebrated as chosen by the gods, becoming priests. Troll eyes are beautiful and shimmer like gems or crystals. Trolls have an innate strong connection to nature and don't often build housing like the other races do. Outside of the more modernized cities, influenced by other races Trolls often live in partially rebuilt caves or nurture trees and other plants into the little amount of coverage against the weather that they need. Because they are partly made from actual stone and metal Trolls have to eat large amounts of rock and ore to grow and regenerate wounds. To accomodate for that diet, troll teeth are usually covered in a layer of adamantine, the strongest known metal. This led to troll hunts being a relatively common occurence before the age of man. This trade got rarer, but since adamantine is still in very high demand, black market troll hunts are still a thing. Due to their high amount of minerals and metals in their body, Trolls are usually less skilled in the use of magic than the "flesh folks", but there are some that have high compability with magic, for example through a high Salynum content in their body. The silicon based brains of Trolls struggle with temperature, which usually isn't a problem, as Somrol is in the far north-east of Dorhin, covered in snow during a good part of the year, but it gave them a bad name with other humanoids. As the other folk spend any serious thinking in heated or warm areas - those in which trolls get slow - the prejudice of trolls being stupid was born. Another thing that strengthened this belief was that Trolls prefer to live rather secluded and interact less with the other races. Due to that many of them have a relatively bad understanding of the common trading language, which in turn makes them seem like mumbling fools. Opposite to that Trolls are actually often fairly sensitive, caring deeply about their "herd" and doing everything to keep them safe.

The Tribes of Somrol are only loosely connected, more a series of city-states that elect a common council to interact with the other countries of Dorhin, than a country per se. The land the tribes are in is mountainous and full of hardy plants. It spans roughly 91.000 km² which is about the size of Portugal in your world and has a population of around 1.6 million people most of which being Trolls (about 70% to be exact, as their size, died and living conditions make it harder for other species to live there).

[archyvist-sky]

The starchild and the moon - Chapter 2

Mothers

Astro stumbled through the town, the hurt girl on his back. People were looking at him, staring. Covered in blood and wounds, a tiny bloody girl on his back and with a wide sharp-toothed grin it was easy for them to see a monster in him.   He stumbled through the door to his home.  “Oh darling, what has happened to you?”  The boy’s mom ran over to help her son stay on his feet. 

A few minutes later, the girl was put in a bed to rest, after Astros mother cleaned her off the blood and now, they were sitting close, while she was patching up her son.   “Mom, are we monsters? I could not try to heal her at all. I could only use it to hurt someone else. Well, me. That sounds like evil magic”  “Whether anyone is evil is not something, that their ancestry decides. Where they come from or what their parents were. The thing that makes someone evil or good is the choices they make. And I think making the choice to stand up for someone else is a good one.”   She smiled, patting the boys head.   “Let me make something to eat for you two. You keep an eye on your friend.”  Astro nodded, looking intently at the girl for a few moments before he got bored again. She looked frail. Pale, almost white skin with freckles around the nose and shaggy, ash-gray hair, bound into a ponytail, that’s braided after a certain point, as if she tried to braid it herself, but couldn’t do it without looking. Then a magenta-colored eye opened. And then a slightly grumbly voice muttered:  “Hm, I thought that would hurt more.”  “Oh, it does... I used magic to give your wound to me. Pretty cool right? Oh wait, when you meet someone, and you want to be their friend, you have to tell them your name. Uh, I’m Astro, I'm 11 and people say I'm a monster. What about you?”  A shadow rushed over the girls face. For a short moment she looked very sad. A moment after she smiled again.   “I uh... I don’t have a name anymore... But yeah, that magic sounds awesome! But you should have given that wound to them instead! Those fucks go around and just hurt people, they deserve it!”  “Language, young lady.” - Astros mother was in the doorway of the small house, holding two plates of a thick vegetable stew in her hands. “And what do you mean, you don’t have a name anymore?” She set down the plates and sat down on the bed next to the child.   “Yeah, it’s not like you can lose a name. It’s not like they are real.”, Astro added.  “If they aren’t real, you can just give me another one, okay? I... “, the child sighed, and her eyes seemed to glisten a bit in the dim light, “I used to have a mom too, okay? But now I don’t have a mom and because that woman gave me my name, I don’t have a name either! Fuck her!”  A mix of confusion and worry formed on the face of Astros mother. Such a young child, rejecting her mother so much, that she gives up her own name?   "What do yo-” Astro tried to ask, before his mom held his mouth shut.  “We won't ask you any questions about her, if you don’t want to talk about it. You brought my son his smile back and for that alone I want you to be our guest and feel at home here. You can call me Lucia, if you need anything, yes, Luna?”   Lucia smiled at the newly named girl and got up. “Eat up children, before it gets cold.”  As she left the room Luna hid her face in the blanket. A stirring mix of emotions, sadness, happiness, jealousy.  

Astro looked up at her. Should he ask her about her mother, or should he just keep quiet about it?

[archyvist-sky]

Note of the Archyvist

Here I am back with a quill in my hand. It feels weird to write tales instead of mere descriptions again. I feel like I've gotten worse. I guess that wouldn't be surprising as these stories are naturally not written in my native language. Thank you for your patience.

[archyvist-sky]

The starchild and the moon - Chapter 1

Making Friends

It was cold as Astro was cowering in the alley. The children had lost him, at least that was what he hoped. He touched his forehead, close to the curved horn where a rock had hit him. His fingers were smeared red.   They said he was evil, a monster, just here to eat them, but he had never wanted to do anything like that. He grabbed his horns. Maybe if they were gone, he could just be normal. Not this monster everyone saw in him.   Steps were coming closer. Did they find the ally he slipped into?   He tucked his head in, hiding his face behind his knees as the steps got closer. He prepared for insults, rocks, or kicks.   “Who are you? Playing hide and seek?”  That was new. When he looked up there was a girl. She had ash gray hair even though she was younger than him. Her ears were round, but she didn’t have the features of a Hobbit.  “Im not playing anything. And you shouldn’t play with me either, unless you want to be treated as a monster.”  “You are making absolutely no sense. Also, you’re bleeding. Also, also, I AM a monster! Wah!” She made a face and him and raised her hands like claws. He felt a chuckle coming but suppressed it.  “Still, you should go. I’m dangerous. I eat the souls of all good people.”  “Hmm.” She plopped down beside him, looking up at the gray sky. “Maybe you should start eating the souls of the bad people that make you bleed instead.”  Astro was stumped.   “Ha! There he is!” Voices came from the end of the alley. The children from the settlement had found him again.  The group was led by a human boy named Eric and consisted otherwise of the Hobbits Seppi and Luca and finally Roc, an orc boy, who was almost double their size. Astro was taller than all of them but Roc, but he was thin, probably weighing the least of all of them. Apart from the girl. She was about the size of Luca and Seppi, but had the thin build of a human, not like the stocky shorter humanoids.  “Hey are you the asswipes that hurt him? You should be ashamed!” The girl had sprung up next to Astro and started shouting at the kids. They were visually taken back by the sudden action. Then Eric started talking:  “We are just trying to protect the city! He is a monster that will eat us. Or pray to devils to have them destroy everything. Or become a devil himself, just look at him, he is already a monster! All the devilspawn do is destroy, they can’t do anything else! You should try to get away from him, so he doesn’t hurt you!”  Suddenly the scene had changed. Astro didn’t even realize what had happened and now just saw the scene before him.  Eric was kneeling on the floor, holding his cheek. Before him was the girl, panting, the knuckles on her fist white. The other kids looked on in confusion and shock. Did this tiny girl just punch Eric because he insulted Astro? They didn’t even know each other. A confusing mix of feelings stirred up in Astro. Then Roc punched back.    

A few minutes later Astro was sitting in an alley panting. It was cold, but he didn’t feel it. There was blood on his fists, and he wasn’t sure if it was his or theirs. Probably both.   Roc punched the girl. She didn’t even know Astros name and still stood up for him. After that Astro fought back for the first time. He wasn’t strong, but he was used to the pain. It was less that he beat them and more that he outlasted them.   The girl was lying next to him. The brute’s punch had knocked her out and blood painted the floor red, when her head hit the pavement. He wished that he could do something for her. He saw wizards use magic to heal people before and he even felt the ripples in power going out from them. But whenever he tried to concentrate on magic, he was overcome by a weird sensation. A lust for destruction and death stemming from his evil ancestry. One of the other kids said that “demonspawn” could only destroy with their magic. Was he right?  Concentrating on the flow of magic, he tried to replicate what the healers did.  But nothing happened.  He tried to imagine the wound closing with all his heart, but the desire to destroy warped the image and he stopped, fearing he would make it worse.  The puddle of blood grew further. Following one last desperate attempt at magic he commanded the destruction. And a wound grew on his head.   He healed the girl by taking on her pain himself.   Astro picked her up and started staggering home. Everything hurt and he was slathered in blood, but a smile could not leave his face. He made a friend. 

[archyvist-sky]

The starchild and the moon - Prologue Flalia

Our story starts in the city of Netri, in the Flalian Trade Company. This is the land of a race known as Hobbits. You might have some preconceived notions about what they are like, and some of them might be very well true. Hobbits are shorter than most humanoids, usually around 130 cm or 4'3". They tend to have calm, soothing personalities, which turned them from a race that was seen as weak and useless during the age of war into the folk of traders. They used not to own land during the wars and started to trade, barter and buy land united under Lorenzo Flalia in the Flalian Trade Company, which grew to its own country in time. Another thing that gave Hobbits the edge over other folk in trade was their craftiness and inventiveness. Many classic magic items are said to have been invented by Hobbits and to this day the most well made bags of holding were sewn in Flalia. Netri is a medium sized city close to the only land bridge, that brought a lot of the wealth to Flalia, but still far enough away to not be a center of trade. A working city with farmland and several artificers workshops, mindlessly creating magic items for use outside of the city, Netri is a little behind. While other races are common in Flalia, considering it is one of the younger countries, some of them, especially Tieflings or "devil's blood" are despised in the more rural areas. In the slums of Netri is where two children grew up. Astro, a tiefling child, shunned and mocked for his evil blood and the girl that would become known as Luna, the daughter of a concubine, never getting the chance to meet her father and regarded as scum by the conservative, distrusting society.

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The continent itself

This is the continent of Dorhin, a large landmass on the world of Avant. It is inhabited by many different creatures, both monstrous and humanoid and sometimes both. In this world magic is strong, warping reality and allowing those that dare to influence the world around them through many different means. The existence of magic does not hinder the creation of technology however, sometimes even amplifying it, culminating in steam automatons or airships. Still, in general the technological level is comparable with your world's early 19th century. On this continent there are several countries, as you may have seen on the map. Most of these countries were born out of the different folks or races of people, mostly keeping to themselves, but during the last few hundred years the world has become more accepting and you can find almost any race almost anywhere. We will go further into the different countries while we delve deeper into the Archyves and I tell you about the heroes' tales.

[archyvist-sky]

My Introduction

Hello everyone. My name is Sky, I'm an Archyvist, collecting, telling and spinning the tales of some people, some might consider heroes, from the continent of Dorhin. I want to tell you their stories and give you the opportunity not to merely watch, but touch and interact with the story.

I am a DM of two TTRPG groups creating both my own game and my own world. I've always been deep into fantasy stories and writing and collected way too many OCs in my days. Now I modified them to suit the world from my games and want to use them to solidify the world and to tell stories. For that I will use this account to write longer form texts and (for now) Twitter for polls, to have people directly interact with the story or what they want to see.