linkwood

[linkwood]

It’s been 2.5 years, but this weekend I have a dedicated time to write, and I’m gonna actually do it.

artist in denial of being depressed: omg this 2 month long art block has been crazy... sorry i haven't updated any of my fics in a long while! it's just been super difficult to daydream! so weird that i've lost a little bit of passion for my current comfort character and ocs... this couldn't possibly have any implications or alternative explanations

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unstoppable force (desire to write) vs immovable object (tired)

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happy new years write that fucking book bitch

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I’ll pick this shit up again soon. You can do it, me. Just gotta actually do it.

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It's always so disappointing when sci fi and fantasy books call their languages "Basic" or "Common". No language is apolitical or universal if they're all calling one language Basic, who made it that way? Why is THIS dialect "Common" and all the others are Special/Magical/Incomprehensible??? Show me even a hint of the politics, or give your language a real name

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Decided to get sick almost immediately after posting that first wave.

You could say god spit on me or something idk ill workshop it.

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Project 1: GodSpit - The Magics

Magic in GodSpit is built with a Sandersonian systematic-ness that I don't personally find very interesting these days, but I know leads to a lot of explosive moments of character growth, reader excitement, and it can honestly be a fun puzzle for me as an author to build solid things and see how they interact. The highest source of magical power in GodSpit are the gods. They, either directly or indirectly, created all the forms of energy that magic manipulates. People have figured out a number of unique ways to work with that energy, with a fair splash of both cross-pollination and over-protectiveness leading to many different branches of magic.

First and most commonly are magics sourced from the Wöldn, the bestial sleeping god inside which the world grows:

Leylines & Leyic Energy - The Wöldn is a living god, and its body provides nourishment for those inside it. The blood vessels, arteries, and capillaries of the Wöldn crisscross the lands, flowing powerful energy in channels known as Leylines. This Leyic energy holds much, including the reflections of memories that Jun uses for her Talespinning. - Every living thing (except Spirits) has their own Leylines extending throughout their physical body. These are manipulatable in the same way that the Wöldn's Leylines are, but since there aren't many beings as robust as the Wöldn out there, this can be pretty damaging if done incorrectly - or, if you know what you're doing, lead to unbelievable power. Some branches of the Slayers Guild devote themselves towards attuning their internal Leylines for greater strength, speed, and more. - If everything living has Leyic power, does that power stay in the body after death? Yes. It does. And you can eat it. Ritually consuming the bodies of monsters can grant powerful effects, and chefs across civilization are just beginning to learn what's possible through the culinary arts. Some are even finding it possible to combine Leyic and Spiritual Energies in some fashions. - By the same principle, you can also become those creatures to some degree through implantation of that creature's organs. This is known as Symbiosis, and is pretty fucked up. - Artificially carving Leyic patterns into objects and flooding them with Leyic Energy can also have effects. This is a key piece of Totemistry, Spiritbinding, and Symbiosis, wherein particular patterns are replicated from the natural Leylines of places and creatures in order to invoke some replication of their essence. - Leyic Energy can also resonate at particular frequencies of sound, though manipulation of this effect is out of the reach of most humans and hasn't really been experimented with.

Spirits & Spiritual Energy - Living spirits and the energy they consist of are created spontaneously by the dreams of the sleeping Wöldn. Much of Totemistry is fueled by Spiritual energy and manipulates it towards particular outcomes through the combination of conceptual aspects of objects and entities. That's a very confusing way of saying if you mash together a little fire spirit and a nice sword, you'll get a cool flaming sword. - Spirits as living beings are constructed largely of spiritual energy. When manifesting in the World Somatic, their connection to that energy is weaker, and their influence less; in their homes in the World Without, however, even the lowest kami can be a terrifying presence. - All living things have Spiritual Energy (aka 'a spirit') to some extent, though beings endemic to the World Somatic have much less than those of the World Without. This leads to the creation of Remnant spirits when people or beasts die. - Spiritual Energy doesn't have defined flow in the way Leyic Energy does. However, it can be controlled through binding contracts, with the Origin Pact being the prime example. Without this contract in place, Totemists could not capture the spirits of beasts and transplant them into objects - without the Pact, the Energy would simple dissipate when the beast dies. This process is called Spiritbinding. - Spirits and Spiritual Energies can be spliced, honed, and tempered into shapes and Bindings that have greater powers and/or effects. Powers borne of other gods can be found as: Exultancy - When a god or godlike being chooses a champion in the World Somatic to enact that will, that champion is bathed in the god's pure power, becoming Exultant. These champions' World Within is altered to meet the god's needs, and they are then able to manifest a splinter of their patron's power physically. Exultants primarily act as defenders of humanity, appearing in the face of great adversity such as Behemoth attacks. The entirety of the Solaian standing army, The Bright Order, are technically Exultant, albeit to a lesser degree individually than most other Exultants.

Leycurses - Despite the common name insinuating a connection to Leyic energy, Leycurses can only be inflicted by a being with high authority over entire classes of spirit (usually a god). To inflict a curse, a person is forcibly implanted with a spirit, causing bizarre effects to alter their bodies in unpredictable ways. The nomad clans were punished with Leycurses many generations ago, and only the Eastwheels redeemed themselves in the eyes of the gods and cleansed their bloodlines, about 5 generations ago.

There are likely other branches of magic out there, in remote settlements or entire other civilizations on the opposite side of the world, but they are yet unknown to this particular writer. I mean, this is already a lot.

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Project 1: GodSpit - The Setting

The world of GodSpit, called Wöheln (wurr-HELN) by its inhabitants, resides within the stomach of a sleeping beast god. Its people are few: burgeoning societies are constantly bombarded by the feral monsters, wild spirits ranging from harmless nisse and kodama to high reflections of the mountains and seas, and pure emanations of sentient emotion that roam the land. Worst of all are the Behemoths, highest of the sleeping god's dreams, bent on scouring the infection that is Wöheln from their progentior's body.

Humanity searches for the reason for their being created here, in a place so hostile to their very being, and finds the gods Kheraia and Tenyoa, the sun and the moons and grandchildren of the sleeping beast, awaiting them with open arms. The gods foster humanity and other sapient spirits, granting magic, safety, and knowledge in exchange for worship.

As we begin the tale of GodSpit, there are only two large settlements for humanity to reside in.

First and largest is the city of Solaia, home to the ruling cadre called the Kinship and presided over by the Angel Kheshia, Emanation of Hope and Daughter of Kheraia. Port to the eastern coastal fishing villages and centerpiece of the great Lamproads, Solaia is a bastion of humanity that shelters innumerable honest workers and satellite towns beneath her boughs.

To the south-east, wedged between the end of the Lamproads and the encroaching edge of the Sormaine Swamps, sits St. Sormaine. If Solaia is the body of humanity, St. Sormaine is its brain. St. Sormaine is home to the College of Dust, a powerful council of spirit researchers holding the only known records of destroyed civilizations. Birthplace of new magics and technologies and one of the key reasons that civilisation has reached its current level, St. Sormaine is fiercely protected by humans and spirits alike -- chiefly, Apotan, Enshrined Guardian of the town, has eyes in every shadow.

Beyond these lands, four clans cursed for unknown ancient transgressions against the gods eek out a nomadic life on the distant mountains, plains, and archipelagos, weaving into more civilized lands when needed but keeping largely to themselves.

The realms available to humanity are vaster than this, however. The lands of soil and water are known as the World Somatic, the place grown from the seed of firmament thrown into the belly of the Wöldn. Any being may step out into the realm of spirits, where the dreams of the Wöldn are fully manifest, the World Without. As each being is, in essence, a child of the Wöldn, the same process exists for each individual: a small reality inside their own spiritual anima, the World Within.

There are unknowns in the world of Wöheln. Maybe, as I write, we will discover them.

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Project 1: GodSpit - The Story

Before history, Kelhuton’n was the first to make the firmament. Born to build, Kelhuton’n did, and so crafted the stars and the light they shed. In the stars, Kelhuton’n caught a first glimpse of beauty, and so wept. Those tears were the fire that turned the light into suns, and that sobbing was the wind which blew the stars into their spiral dance.

Bathed in joy and ecstasy, Kelhuton’n felt something new: a desire to share. Kelhuton’n built another that might share these sights and drink deep of their wonder. Kelhuton’n built themself, reflected. The One Reflected beheld the sights that Kelhuton’n had created, and knew awe. Kelhuton’n beheld The One Reflected and knew fear, and the unspeakable glory of creation. Kelhuton’n saw beyond its ken, and grew delirious and wild. The One Reflected saw its creator fall to madness, and used power equal to that of its progenitor to trap Kelhuton’n within a prison of flesh. The first Kelhuton’n became the Wöldn, a wild beast of fangs and claws and spines. The Wöldn lashed out, throwing reflections of its new self at The One Reflected. The battle raged until The One Reflected threw a mote of the firmament itself into the one of the Wöldn's many maws. The mote was of Kelhuton'n, and the dissonant harmony calmed the Wöldn enough to be forced into sleep.

As the Wöldn slept, the mote within its gullet grew, sprouting stone and seed and sea, and each of these grew a reflection, a spirit, born of the Wöldn’s dreaming.

The One Reflected saw life, but knowing its creator's tale, knew not to behold too deep. Instead, The One Reflected reached out, gathering the tears and the sobbing that had built the sky, and birthed its children: Kheraia, the Fire of Life, and Tenyoa, the Pull of Reason. The One Reflected tasked its children with caring for the Wöldn and the world inside it. And so they did, and history began.

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This is GodSpit. A feral high fantasy balanced in the place between the carving knife and the hand that holds it.

GodSpit follows Juniper Eastwheel Maybelle Feront'anen, a grandmother in her mid-70s and Elder of the Eastwheel nomad clan, as her family is wiped out by a spiritual embodiment of disdain made flesh, known as the Night Tyrant. With her lower body eviscerated and the blood of her only grandchild on her face, Jun is saved by a woman referred to by the Night Tyrant as an Exultant of Tenyoa, a young warrior priestess named Teliin. In the process of healing Jun, Tenyoa delivers an incomprehensible message to her, and rewinds her body to roughly the age of 20. Teliin and her detachment of Slayers depart to chase the Night Tyrant further before Jun fully recovers, and she and the remaining Eastwheels are left to limp back to Solaia, the only known city still standing.

Jun, former lawkeeper, educator, and storyteller of her clan, struggles to find acceptance in her new body, and quickly resolves to join the Solaian Slayers Guild, a group of professional warriors dedicated to protecting humanity from the monsters, spirits, and worse that call the wide land of Wöheln home. She meets the local Slayers Branch Co-ordinator, an inscrutable man named Treyarn "Trey" Byron Jorn, and asks to begin training within the Guild. Trey delivers a counter-offer: the surviving Eastwheels join Trey and his Slayers on an expedition to establish a mining settlement in the mountains to the north-east, and Trey will personally tutor Jun in the Guild's ways.

He tests her current capabilities against a clutch of young Scythe Drakes, reptilian woodland predators that use plated skulls to ambush and stun larger prey before killing with their namesake bladed tails. Jun pulls from her former life for the first time in the weeks since becoming young and uses the storytelling magic passed down through nomad clans known as Talespinning to overcome the drakes, but not without breaking an arm and needing to be saved by Trey. Trey is still impressed, and gladly accepts Jun into an apprenticeship.

From there, Jun meets the rest of the caravan travelling to the new settlement: an inexperienced young Totemist named Lettnar, the reserved and inscrutable Healer Haemir, a score of tradesmen and settlers spoken for by the blacksmith Barrith, and the nine Slayers that make up the advance settlement party, which includes six other apprentices.

From there begins Jun's journey towards becoming a Slayer, finding Teliin, and learning why a God would chose to save her.

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Project 1: GodSpit - An Overview of Where We're At Now

GodSpit is the first and oldest idea I'm working on the plot for this NaNo. It's the only project I've already done substantial writing for, but I'm pretty unhappy with the direction the plot was taking, and wanting to rework it was kinda the impetus for this whole NaNo plotting work thing. It's also the project I'm the most casual about: it's 100% writing practice, verging on fanfic, and I don't expect to publish it. It's for fun. Like most of my creative ideas, GodSpit is stupidly derivative. It began with a sick thread on /tg/ (and then /qst/) called Totemist Quest, which began in 2011, authored by Diarca. The Totemist Quest world and magic system were extremely fun, but Diarca's posting was inconsistent and eventually stopped in 2019. Participating in those threads was a ton of fun (literally the only fun I ever had on 4chan), and I still check back every now and then to see if Diarca has posted again. If you're interested, you can read through all the old TQ threads here. GodSpit was my response to wanting more Totemist Quest. I loved the primary magic system, which involved "capturing" the spirits of monsters and adding them to weapons and armor to create wild effects, kind of like a fusion of Pokemon and Monster Hunter. I also loved the creative action, the diverse character cast, and Diarca's willingness to take things a little slow and explore both character and setting. I had other influences, too. D.M. Cornish's Monster Blood Tattoo books, Garth Nix's Seventh Tower, and the Monster Hunter video games being the biggest. There's bits and pieces of some Final Fantasys, some How To Train Your Dragon, a few Magic: The Gathering planes (mostly Kamigawa), and lightly seasoned with a touch of good old Naruto fanfic. One small note: I intentionally use some amalgams of real-world terms, languages, and religious symbols in this story mostly to translate style and intent. I never wish to cause offence or harm, so if that happens I want to know about it and change it. When I began writing GodSpit in 2019, it was with the idea of releasing it serially on Royal Road. So I researched what people said was succeeding on RR, and found a Reddit post of one author's advice. Their core message: don't take your foot off the gas. Break your story's neck. Go really fucking fast. So I tried to do that, I pantsed 9 chapters, ~12k words, looked back at it, and saw a jumbled mess. And now we're here. I even drafted up a ttrpg system for the setting and got a cover commissioned (the one at the top of this post, by the very cool and talented @lucyg_art on Instagram). I'll cover the current world and story of GodSpit in my next post, and then at some point soon I'll actually start re-plotting the whole fuckin thing out 😵‍💫

[linkwood]

Going to be undertaking my first NaNoWriMo this year, but because this time of year is also busy as fuck for work, I’m not going to do “actual writing”.

Instead, I’m going to focus on improving on what I struggle with the most in my writing: plotting! I hope to have at least three solid plots concepted out by the end of the month.

I have ideas, and I’m going to use my Tumblr to track them! Hopefully!