#also there are six seas ; three major continents ; and then several smaller island groupings throughout

[you-are-my-neverland]

Hi hello hope you're well! Could you possibly tell me more about your nano wip Pirates? 👀

yes!! i could!!

well, firstly, as you can see, i don't have a title for it...so that's why it's just called 'pirates' for now. this wip is set in a fantasy universe where the earth, sea, and sky were created from the bodies of the great gods (not as gruesome as it sounds, but i love a good sacrifice/creation by dismemberment cosmogony. thank you mythology literature class i took over the summer). magic is therefore insinuated into nature itself; some are born with the ability to access it, while some can't (i.e some people have magic, some are Just Normal).

now, these great gods each have a Heart that was/is basically their magical core. whoever possesses these Hearts will have infinite power, etc; you know, the usual. there are two Hearts considered to be hidden in the actual world, the Stone Heart and the Star Heart. the Stone Heart is split into four pieces, presumably, two of which are with the overarching religious organization of the world, the All Seas Assembly (ASA), and the other two which are lost. the Star Heart has never been seen/found, and is the end goal of one of the wip's main protagonists, arete. arete's mother was a famous pirate on the quest to find the Star Heart, which she ultimately failed at. before passing, she magically imprinted a map onto arete's skin that would lead her to the Star Heart.

arete is ten when her mom dies, and manages to escape the destruction of their ship by being sent out to sea. she ends up on the island of caelus, near the village of kynohue, where akane lives with her mother. akane is our other protagonist, despite the fact that she'll be missing from much of the actual story. her father was killed by pirates after standing up to a crew who attacked their village, and so akane's life has not been great lately either. kynohue is now a tributary village that has to pay to the pirates monthly/quarterly in order to live.

the story as i conceptualize it now has at least two arcs. well, technically three if you count the pre-actual written story arc involving arete's mother, iriyin. the arc i'm working on for nanowrimo is an arc that covers arete and akane's life together in kynohue (with akane's mother, emi), which lasts for around five years (it won't be entirely sequential; there's mostly the beginning, scattered scenes showing growth and the passage of time, and then the end, but i'm still at the beginning if that makes sense). after those five years, when arete is fifteen and akane fourteen, they get separated after the village is attacked by the pirates, though not before making a promise to meet again one day.

after that, there's a six year time skip, and the story will pick up again with arete, now twenty-one, truly beginning to build her crew. her end goal has always been fulfilling her mother's wishes (which she is magically obliged to as well) and finding the Star Heart, but there's of course a lot of ocean to explore and other side routes to take before them. she's also waiting to reunite with akane as well; the two have no idea where the other is in the world, or if they're even alive. i've got a ton of cool characters in planning stages for their actual crew (a deaf swordsman, a miracle doctor, a navigator with a perfect sense of direction on a quest to find her brother, assassins, etc), but for nano i decided to focus on the first arc because that's what is solid in my head. not sure how much will actually make it into the main wip, but it's been ok so far.

alright, i hope this all made sense! there's a ton more worldbuilding behind the scenes, but these are the key conceptual details you need to know. thank you for your interest!