koegama

[koegama]

Tajira are individualistic and obsessed with self expression, and this mentality bleeds into clothing: dressup is one of the easiests way to mark your individuality, after all.

The three layered close fitting collar is a popular style. Each tajira makes or buy custom made patterns and molds, it's rare to see repeat combinations.

Masks (and hats) are another popular item. Being representations of fauna and mythos, or even original characters that the Tajira created, they often cover the upper half of the face and leave the lower jaw bare, so it looks more like it's an extension of your face.

[koegama]

i need to get better at sharing stuff here... doodling fashion for koegama species and their traditional clothes

[koegama]

im really excited for your arpg! will the site you have it hosted on have some kind of forum? or what kinds of ways will we be able to interact with other community members?

currently our plan is discord, I did think about implementing forums, but I'm worried about being harder to moderate + the fact a discord is easier for a very small team -> we keep the discord -> people dont use the forums loop.

however we will implement private messages and trade/sale stuff so you dont have to go on discord to do anything basic, itd just be an interaction hub!

[koegama]

I'm collecting website images, so I can start talking about Aether effects on some of the sophonts in an easier way

Tajira false flora aka their hair. False aether made structures that mimic the "flora" (not exactly flora but I think if I tried to specify taxonomy I'd die) around them. Water based organisms are more common but there's some guys out there with grasses, bushes and random tree leaves/vines growing out of them too. Functions sorta like that plant species that can copy the shape and structure of other plants, but it doesn't rot or decay like living matter does. It's more like a very very big and specialized hair folicle.

Once the shape is decided, the only way to change is to remove every single growth and influence it to look like another plant. Not even confirmed to work, sometimes your Aether will just use some random plant you saw 3 years ago instead. You're better of styling it by trimming, dying, and manual shape changes.

Growth pattern can vary. On the left is all the possible root areas of their hair, but that doesn't mean it'll grow like that. A common pattern is a head-neck growth, bare back and tail growth. Some grow it everywhere, some have patchy spots, some may have hormonal issues that cause them to have no growth/a bald look (or they can just manually shave it for aethetics).

Another Aether quirk, Luminae have something called Aether shedding. Their aether stores never really stop production and it can build up, so it gets released near secretion areas such as the neck and tail. Luminaes natural aether is igazo, and the most common byproduct is light particles. There's speculation that those exist to be used to localize themselves in darker areas with ease, but another less common byproduct of igazo aether is actually shadow particles, which puts this theory to test. Is shadow particles a recessive trait, a mutation, or does it have a different function?

Luminae who learned other aether skills may have different byproducts, and sometimes they can overlap. Overlapping can be a sign that you're hemorraging Aether though, and can weak your systems.

[koegama]

Despite tajira not having "nests" and hosting eggs in rooms, they still build nests as tradition. each nest will hold a single egg, and its common for various trinkets to be scattered across. some are gifts for the child and their future collection, others are symbolic and represent the parents desires for the childs health, personality, and even colors and hair type. No sharp or hard objects are used, since tajira hatchlings are pretty independent and if they hatch without a parent around, they will wander off and can cut themselves.

The statues on the sides are religious items made by the parents, and they protect the egg from illness and egg rot.

[koegama]

Kosa harpy meets Koegama Harpy

Love @ranticore's works and i love critters from different worlds meeting even more. In koegama, "harpy" applies to any human with a wereform that preserves their face, no matter what the rest of the anatomy looks like. this one was unlucky and met a non-avian one, oops.

[koegama]

do you guys wanna see a post about clothing of each species or the food habits of tajira and luminae to match the hanasei post. or something else

[koegama]

I really ought to draw more culture stuff for luminae and tajira and stop hogging on hanasei. sorry for having a favorite child oops

[koegama]

They only grow once! The growth starts around the 5th year of the young and plateaus between 23 and 27 years old. There are hormones you can take that reactivate horn growth though, but the results are mixed, and it tends to affect other functions of the body, so one must exercise caution.

I should have said "After their horns stop growing" in the main post, because the socially accepted age to get horn carvings is whenever your horns stop growing and until you die lol. It's also why sawing them is so rebellious, they won't come back! At least carvings leave the shape and size of the horn intact. Older adults do it sometimes, but the cases for it are often "I carved my horns to look like my friends but they're dead and in grief I cut them off" or "I no longer agree with what I carved but I don't want to wear horn molds"

Horn carving is one of hanaseis main aesthetic stylistic choices (clothes came a bit after with trade and first contact with luminae, and tattoo took a bit to develop). After their horns start growing, a hanasei may decide to carve their horns for a variety of reasons, whether it be cultural (as some professions and positions of power required signifiers) or for personal taste.

The most common shapes in carving are similar to those that encompass their written language, being dots and waves. Carving holes to fit piercings became very popular too. Sometimes dyes are used to color the carvings and horns in different ways, but the raw keratin is still the most traditional look.

A recent trend has been sawing off part of the horn to create a mismatched look, very popular with youngsters. Whether sawed or just carved, most will also have molds created beforehand that are stored and worn in case they regret their decision (or their carvings are inappropriate to certain events).

Another part is that just like they have molds of the original horn, with the advent of better materials for the molds, some wear carved molds instead of carving their horns. This enables more personal expression but also for various friendship bubbles (and any other bubbles hanasei may find themselves) to get matching horns and adapt to whichever group they're in they love wearing similar things and following trends and befriending others who also follow the trends they do, so now they get to match a carved horn for every group. It also helps with the indecisive and the ashamed.

[koegama]

Horn carving is one of hanaseis main aesthetic stylistic choices (clothes came a bit after with trade and first contact with luminae, and tattoo took a bit to develop). After their horns start growing, a hanasei may decide to carve their horns for a variety of reasons, whether it be cultural (as some professions and positions of power required signifiers) or for personal taste.

The most common shapes in carving are similar to those that encompass their written language, being dots and waves. Carving holes to fit piercings became very popular too. Sometimes dyes are used to color the carvings and horns in different ways, but the raw keratin is still the most traditional look.

A recent trend has been sawing off part of the horn to create a mismatched look, very popular with youngsters. Whether sawed or just carved, most will also have molds created beforehand that are stored and worn in case they regret their decision (or their carvings are inappropriate to certain events).

Another part is that just like they have molds of the original horn, with the advent of better materials for the molds, some wear carved molds instead of carving their horns. This enables more personal expression but also for various friendship bubbles (and any other bubbles hanasei may find themselves) to get matching horns and adapt to whichever group they're in they love wearing similar things and following trends and befriending others who also follow the trends they do, so now they get to match a carved horn for every group. It also helps with the indecisive and the ashamed.

[koegama]

Ignore the other placeholders, but I'm slowly working on assets and thus lore for the assets. Ink bottles like these are used to perform ink morphs on individuals.

The bottles look different for gameplay and aesthetic reasons, but also reflect that aether ink creation is also a diverse work with many creators like the act of inking itself. Some lines work better in one species than others, some focus on specific traits, etc. The current standard is that species ink comes with a rather uniform ingredient list to give the best results that follow that species anatomy, but "wild" ink is much more variated in how its made depending on the producer. But if you want some more niche, targetted species ink there's many artisans you can work with.

[koegama]

Body types for all the species in koegama :) they all have the potential to gain muscle and fat, just at different rates

[koegama]

omgg im obsessed with your world its so so cool!! can i ask to know more about the planet the species all live on, and what program do you use to note all your worldbuilding this project is super cool and you shiuld keep up such good work, id love to see what it becomes in the future!!

Sorry for the late reply!! The program I use is Obsidian, it's open source and you should check it out

The planet itself is called Koegama, which is the word for it in the hanasei language Ii'mau. It looks similar in other Uushu language branches (aka the branch of language most hanasei langs come from), but it has completely different names in other places. I just picked Koegama because it was the first name I had for it and I decided to canonize it as an actual word.

It's 1.3x times the size of Earth, but around 86% water and the climate/biomes are much more affected by the fact Aether exists and can influence the physics, chemistry, temperature etc of a place. I plan on making a map of it soon though!!!

Koegama has 2 main continents, and then various island chains and a large australia-esque sized island. Hanasei, Luminae and Tajira are located on the western continent, and they have not made contact with the eastern continent due to lack of massive exploration incentives to cross the large ocean between them. There's no christopher colombus and most of the species don't have expansionist philosophies. Im gonna start drawing how the biomes and architecture look too so watch out for that :)

[koegama]

Hanasei cuisine

Trying out a new format with these lore dumps, ft a bit of Hanasei cuisine! Its all meat folks

[koegama]

slowly working on the culture posts, for now heres some style tests with the koegama species :)

[koegama]

writing for hanasei culture and I have a basis to work on now!! Which one of these would you guys want to hear from most?

[koegama]

I'm writing down the base documents for culture for the species and koegama itself, and once I'm finish I'll start posting here again :) I have so much to share and I'm excited