#except this is NEW and EXCITING dragon thoughts because... wyrms

[schmabbald]

thinking. about dragons

[dragon-grunkle]

star wars and flight rising are in the same universe and here’s why, a ted talk by stanley

in an effort to both 1. talk about my lore more often like i’ve been meaning to and 2. explain what i meant when i went off about it in the tags of my last post, i’m gonna attempt to explain my rationale for deciding star wars and flight rising can totally coexist in the same universe.

there’s a tldr at the very bottom! i do use rebels as a basis for some of this lore, since it basically just confirms concepts i was already thinking of before i even watched the show, but it IS a little spoilery sometimes.

SO. what do we know about sornieth? here’s a summary: it’s the fourth planet from its sun. it has at least one but possibly two or more moons. powerful beings of pure elemental energy sprung up in the early days of the planet’s formation. a darkness from beyond attacks the planet, and the gods build a pillar to keep it out. after this, humanoid races flourish and they learn to combine magic with technology, but eventually someone gets too arrogant and builds a big machine that blows up all of civilization. from this, the arcanist is born. he grows curious and encounters the shade, which breaks the pillar. the other gods see this and decide to go their separate ways. they create dragons.

this new society has reached a point roughly equivalent to the 1920s, and that’s as far as we’ve gotten. that’s it, that’s flight rising. no aliens mentioned, except for the shade (and possibly the forbidden portal enemies if you count those, but that’s for another time).

what about star wars? as we all know, it’s set ‘a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away’. there is a lot of history here that isn’t really relevant, so i’m just going to talk briefly about the layout of the galaxy: it isn’t named, but there are different sections to it that are, and they’re grouped according to how far away a planet is from the center of the galaxy. you have: the core worlds, the inner rim, the mid rim, the outer rim, and wild space. generally, planets are more densely populated towards the center of the galaxy and less as you go out. compare coruscant, a core world entirely covered by a city and inhabited by trillions of people, to tatooine, an outer rim planet that wookieepedia states has 200,000 inhabitants total. 

-----

where does sornieth fit in this map? the answer is simple: wild space. this region lies beyond the outer rim, where not many bother to travel because it’s just not worth it, and it’s where i’ve placed sornieth in this scenario. wookieepedia says:

Unlike other regions of the galaxy, Wild Space existed along the entire circumference of the galactic disk and on the borderlands of the Unknown Regions. It was inhabited by sentient species but not fully charted, explored, and civilized.

star wars: rebels touches on wild space a bit: one of its main characters is a lasat, a species thought to be wiped out by the empire. lasats come from lasan, but they have a legendary ancestral homeworld called lira san. except it turns out that lira san isn’t a myth: it’s real, it’s populated, and it’s in wild space.

the fact that an entire species believed their original homeworld was a myth means we can easily set sornieth there without ever having to worry about political groups such as the republic, the empire, and the rebellion coming across the planet and mucking up our established rule of No Aliens Besides Shade (And Maybe Arcanist). it’s conveniently out of the way AND protects the lore of both continuities very well, ensuring that they don’t interfere with each other by introducing a previously-unheard-of super-powerful flying magical race to the galaxy, or having stormtroopers invade the southern icefields, or something else fucky like that.

------

now that we’ve got location covered, we have to talk about the force, magic, and the gods. i’m gonna get a little handwavey here, but it’s also, i think, the most interesting part of this whole thing, so here we go.

first off, the force. what is it? here’s how obi-wan describes it in a new hope:

It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.

with that description in mind, i want to draw attention to one little throwaway line from the flight rising lorebook chapter 1: the first age: 

From this bedlam, the magical energies themselves began to concentrate and change. Similar particles receded into four great beings, each overwhelmingly dense with a different element. As if eager to proudly display their emergence to some unseen divinity, these beings took on the shapes of great wyrms.

that ‘unseen divinity’? yeah, that’s the force. you could even take the ‘similar particles’ bit to mean midi-chlorians, if you want to acknowledge the prequels’ interpretation of the force.

as we know, some people are stronger with the force than others. these people usually become jedi or sometimes sith, depending on whether they use the light or the dark side. but the jedi and sith aren’t the only force users out there: there are plenty of civilizations who have different names and explanations for it and how it manifests itself varies from person to person. in fact, the lasat people i mentioned earlier recognized the force as something called ‘the ashla’. so different concepts for the force exist across the galaxy, and it’s very possible that what we know as ‘elemental magic’ on sornieth is simply how dragons see different aspects of the force. as if that wasn’t enough, we also know some force users can use the force to manipulate the elements themselves, like how palpatine can use the dark side to create lightning.

so really: i don’t think it’s a stretch to say some intensely powerful creatures born of the universe itself could specialize in a specific aspect of the force and manifest entirely that way.

[billy mays voice] But Wait, There’s More! i’m gonna reference rebels again. yeah, i know. on the planet of atollon lives the bendu, a being of the force who is neither light nor dark. he’s powerful, and at one point, turns himself into a giant storm and strikes down ships with lightning to defend his planet. loth-wolves are a similar concept. they’re animals which are shown to have a deep connection to the force, but only as it relates to the planet they call home, lothal. at one point a character asks if the loth-wolves are on their side and the answer is "they're on lothal's side.” this is how i see the gods as existing in the greater star wars universe: powerful beings intrinsically linked to the planet they originate from. they’re capable of great feats on their own, but can guide others (like humans or dragons) to use the force / magic in their stead.

the gods are real inasmuch as the force is real, and act as extensions of one another. if we wanna go a step further, the deities could all be light-side users and the shade is their dark counterpart, which is a REALLY fun concept to explore.

-----

phew, that’s it. i’ve covered most of it except for how dragons get off sornieth and into the wider galaxy, which is...somewhat less essential than the stuff i talked about above, but i still want to address it, especially since we’ve established they have no outside contact and are limited to 1920s tech. to keep it brief, the easiest answer is...magic.

i don’t want to get tooooo deep into rebels stuff again, but space-time portals do exist in star wars, which is really exciting for me personally, and also a nice setup for dragons to get out into the galaxy - if they have access to them, that is; in rebels they only appear in a jedi temple, but i think it’s possible other access points exist, given that other force-societies also exist. the point is, being handwavey and saying ‘eh, portals’ is a valid excuse that doesn’t totally break either universe because they are canon to both universes. you could also go the route of magic experiments gone wrong, the deities picking off a few special individuals and sending them out, or crazy lighning-arcane tech mergers shooting dragons off into space, never to be heard from again.

there’s any number of possibilities here, ranging from crazy space wizard shenanigans to early spaceflight gone very very wrong.

-----

tldr: sornieth is located in the far reaches of the galaxy, away from major events, and has remained undiscovered. the deities are manifestations of the force channeled through the planet itself; the gods and the force are extensions of one another. sometimes dragons can get off sornieth, but not often, so dragons are rare in the wider galaxy. there is no conflict of lore that says these two things CAN’T exist in the same universe, and in fact, the lore sometimes even supports them coexisting.

or in other words: star wars and flight rising coexist because i want them to, but also because i have legitimate justification for it. i’m too powerful and nobody can stop me from making star wars dragons now.

[bogleech]

(new pokemon spoiler - early design review)

 I’ve been asked the most about a particular new pokemon line so here are my thoughts on it a few weeks to a month before I’ll actually be able to do new pokemon reviews on bogleech:

If I saw Applin on its own with no context, I’d be really excited by the assumption we were FINALLY getting a “worm” themed pokemon, and we sort of are, except this is a dragon type, so it’s a “wyrm” in an apple. That’s pretty clever, honestly, but the first stage really looks the best with those simple leaf-like eyestalks sticking out of a fruit.

“Flapple” is the best in the line because it kind of looks wormiest and keeps those cool, almost mantis-like eyes, however it still reads first and foremost as a reptile, so, we still don’t have a single annelid in the Pokemon world.

The apple pie lizard one....doesn’t do it for me at all. The back of it looks really weird. I would have preferred it have more of a “pie crust shell” than the reptile’s back simply fading into pie crust color, which looks really jarring and odd to me.

The Gigantamax form had the potential to be the coolest, since it’s just a monster version of the first stage, but....that face bugs me. The fat, round cheeks and the toothless mouth with a tongue always sticking out are actually kind of viscerally unpleasant to me. That kind of toothless puffiness, also seen in characters like Yoshi, has unfortunately always felt very uncanny to me ever since I was a kid, not in the creepy-cool monster way but just an unpleasant way. Some people have said that style is trademark of certain fetish art, but I’ve found it creepy even before I knew what that was, and I think honestly the main reason is that it reminds me of cabbage patch dolls.

Overall I like the concept a whole lot, but it falls just short of being a new favorite for me.

[coldalbion]

What is the story behind your username? Also, totally unrelated, do you have any favorite natural areas you enjoy?

I grew up in Cornwall, so I have plenty of places there. There’s this one layby which overlooks Watergate Bay where I spent too much time at peace growing up about 100 yards to the left of the image at this link. I love the Lake District, for its stone circles, and I have a massive connection with Wasdale Head/Wastwater for some reason I can’t explain. Neither could my Mum, but she felt it too.As for the username, well...It’s Cold Albion. What’s that?Read on:Never the Muse is absentfrom their ways: lyres clash and flutes cryand everywhere maiden choruses whirling.Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixedin their sacred blood; far from labour and battle they live.– Pindar, Tenth Pythian Ode; translated by Richmond Lattimore.

There is a land lost to history, slipping between the cracks and into the depths of mind’s dark seas. An island citadel surrounded by roaring waves and girded by sea-serpents; an Otherland of dark forests and hoary stones raised for mysterious purposes.  Ancient kings and mad wizards rub shoulders with outlaws who live like wolves, and horned warriors dance amidst rumbling storms as ancient long-barrows glow with weird and eldritch light.Old gods linger at the crossing places and wild hunts careen howling across skies, all made of smoke and fury, while wise women stir cauldrons and fey folk emerge from hiding to play amidst the green. Mighty armies clash in battle, blood staining the hungry soil – earth now black with age and power as dragons coil about the hills and turn lazily in sleep, half closed-eyes burning with the light of the noonday sun.

Bottomless lakes and rushing rivers open their mouths to welcome wave after wave of newcomers, swallowing them up and softening their bones with moss and leaf-mould, nourishing ancient trees long gnarled with age. Deep holes are filled with metal blood and shining veins, their darkness anything but silent as subterranean spirits whistle and knock in the caverns of the deep below.

On the fringes of the world, at the edge of all things it lies – all unyielding. From the isle’s heart bubbles up a freezing  draught so fierce in its bite that it stops the breath, and sends one down amongst the dead to learn their tales and their songs.

To some a sangraal, to others a cauldron and many more things besides, here and now we give it a name thick with meaning:

WYRD’S WELL

From this seed, this thing of root and branch comes a cold conception; a birthing nourished through the ages and aeons before language. Fetched forth from deep chthonic spaces, emerging through the labyrinthine pathways of the mind as a primeval force only discernible by obliqueness, by poetry, song and story.

It is a cold thing precisely because it can only be seen by absence; as temperature is measured in terms of heat, so coldness is only shown by its relation to heat. Yet anyone who has ever felt the cold knows that it is a thing in and of itself, alive and with its own agenda.

So it is with COLD ALBION, a kind of silent monolith amidst roaring seas of dream. It lives and breathes, populated with those things half-seen out of the corner of the eye, irrational and wild. If it has a language, then that speech is black and made of the tongues of birds, the whisper of the wind in the trees, the rushing of rivers and the howls and hoots of beasts. The slow creaking of mountains and the roar of waves against jagged rock is its tone of voice. Its secret names are written in the curtains of rain and iron-grey skies, in the damp green of leaf and thorns hungry for blood; the granite thrust up to break the surface in times long gone is abruptly revealed – born from the broken skin of sleeping giants.

From that wellspring come the weird words; the freezing waters which excite and chill – sending shivers up the spine, shocking us from the everyday. If the primeval tongue be unspoken and occult – hidden from normal eyes – then what are we left with except for the words which reveal it, and in some way become suffused with it?

Ordinary language becomes dismembered and rendered extra-ordinary – the evocative power of the sorcerer-poet in every word; the deep reflexes hidden inside humanity stimulated by a word or phrase. Stories, narratives, all born of those deep places from before ‘human’ existed.

COLD ALBION is indescribable and indirect. Its shape and borders are inviolate because they are incomprehensibly vast and small enough to be encountered through two words. Additionally, it is capable of sustaining myriad interpretations, and this means that it generates those interpretations on contact!

Its kiss against your mind is almost imperceptible, the seeds nestling there, passing all unremarked. Each movement engenders more, until their absence is keenly, terribly felt. Because of this, because of the fact that a hunger has awakened, is it it any wonder that you greedily accept it deeper into yourselves, as it alternately soothes and excites the craving?

Each mind that touches it may find itself co-opted, colonized and reawakened to the strange vitality which rests sleeping beneath the human world.

HERE BE DRAGONS

COLD ALBION is the land of the witch, the warlock, the werewolf and the giant. These were never human, always and ever something else. It is a land of “Once Upon A Time.” A land which exists in parallel to the human, and must do so because any other alternative is unthinkable, because otherwise it, and more importantly Them are already here and always have been.

To suggest such things exist amidst the world of humanity is heresy, almost an attack on reality itself. So such things exist in an ‘unreal’ otherworldly place, because they are themselves otherworldly, their existence becoming mythologized to the point that it is impossible for them to exist within the world of mankind.

But for those of us who draw draw strength and inspiration from such things, and have noticed that strangeness goes hand in hand with the impossible, we experience a fierce joy and exultation.  Soaring as eagles, with shining heads and gleaming feathers, we burrow into secret places, wiser than serpents and nine times more venomous than wyrms.

Let us be clear as crystal, and twice as cold:

COLD ALBION is not within the lands of humankind. It is unbound and uncompromising, beyond any map or territory. Its vitality is incomparable and peerless, and those that feast upon its flesh and drink its mead are forever changed into things made hoary with newness.

To all but a few they appear inhuman and insatiable, inexorable and severe in focus. Are you aware, do you recall those times when some instinct screamed from a million years ago? When some familiar thing in life became strange and the unease that wrought upon you then, and now – as you realize slowly that you comprehend the implications of these words.

Or as it seizes you suddenly in daily life, when next you look in a mirror or taste the bitter tang, you are drawn back to the moment of understanding. It comes like a lightning flash, spoken in the voice behind the blackest of thunder as the wind howls and the rain lashes down, as the sun beats on your flesh or the cold begins to creep inside your bones and chill your skin.

When the unaccountable dread arises from nowhere, you can allow yourself the last comfort, a final hope that exists only for a moment, before being swept away by a raging torrent bursting up from realms before language and thought were ever born:

“This cannot be happening to me.”

[skyplayer37]

Worm Liveblog: End.

   So thats how Worm ends.... where do I begin?

   I haven't done a serious liveblog for the second half because I just wanted to take it all in, but I guess I'm at the point now where the taking it in is over and I need to vomit out some words. The fact that I'm writing this one in a word processor instead of the Tumblr text editor means I'm already subconsciously knowing that this is going to be pretty long, so buckle up.

   In short? It was awesome. Everything in the story came together perfectly. At the beginning I just couldn't concieve an ending that would involve Cauldron, Scion, Endbringers, Passengers, and all the various capes in a way that was satisfying. But it was pulled off pretty damn well.

   Let's take a look at some of my predictions and use those as launch points for some discussion:

   - Arc 1: "Taylor remains adamant about being good even after enjoying the company of the villains. Her descent to evil will be a slow corruption, but the story will justify it by making the superheroes look bad."

   She did indeed descend into madness as Khepri, with a large focus on self-justification. Taylor always thinks she's doing the right thing, which is a staple of any good villain. Except she wasn't truly a villain and did save the day in the end. Except she accept her villainy and wanted to die in the end. Except the heroes decided to keep her alive. So the morals are all over the place. In the end, Taylor gets a happy ending. With  (kinda) both her parents, and a self that isn't defined by her powers.  Skitter and Weaver were personas shaped by her Passenger, and for all intents and purposes were actually killed in the end. But Taylor, the little girl from the beginning of the story, gets the happy ending.

   - Arc 3: "the Birdcage sounds like an interesting location. And no story ever says “No one has ever escaped that prison!” without the protag later escaping that prison (or the big bad to show how big and bad they are)."

   Nope. The  Birdcage was made rather pointless by Doormaker, despite the set-up that teleportation tricks wouldn't work. Even Kehpri, without much practice with Doorman's power, was able to break in and out easily. There wasn't the all out war in the Birdcage that I expected, but I expect a similar prison to be used in Ward, perhaps the same Birdcage but upgraded. At the very least it made Panacea much more tolerable and brought in Marquis, one of the coolest parahumans. But it also introduced Teacher, one of the more boring ones. Assuming Ward is a true direct sequel, I expect Teacher to go down in the first few arcs as the intro-villain before being surpassed by someone a thousand times more evil.

   - Arc 5: " It’s too obvious that Grue’s little sister will get powers".. " Regent’s gonna die real soon. He’s expendable."... "Taylor is going to get a good boost to her power soon"

   Correct on all accounts. Imp is one of the best characters left alive by the end. Regent had to go because Taylor just ends up with a better version of his power. It's left pretty vague when she had her second trigger event thought. I'd guess sometime during Leviathan? It was after that, when she took over her  territory, that her multi-tasking powers really ramped up.

- Arc 10: "Everything happening went right over my head until they arrived at the Wards after being “caught”, which is to say I didn’t realize we were being introduced to Regent’s actual power of body possession. A power eerily similar to what I guessed Taylor’s endgame powers would be, just a bit more limited and requiring conscious movement on Regent’s part for every motion and not how Taylor just taps into natural instincts."

   So let's talk about Khepri. Taylor finally thinks she has the power-limitation thing figured out, so she goes to Panacea who just... kinda gets it instantly? A bit odd that the ability for Taylor to go crazy like that was so easily reached and out of nowhere. But I guess Panacea had gotten to the point where she barely needed to second-guess messing with someone's head. So Taylor comes up with a crazy idea and 5 minutes later has powers worthy of instantly jumping to Class-S, taking control of every parahuman in existence with some quick synergy, combining Doormaker and his clairvoyent bf and ballooning in power like a good Binding of Isaac build. Thematically though, it works beautifully. She's become the Queen of her swarm, with all of humankind nothing but insects in comparison to a mighty godlike entity. Scion treated humans like we would ants, toying with them as one would burn ants with a magnifying glass. But as Taylor proved with her insects against humans, enough humans working together through a hivemind can overcome an entity thousands of times their scale. She killed the impenetrable Alexandria by commanding bugs, and now the immortal Scion by commanding humans. Wow you can really look back at the first few arcs where the teenage girl is learning about the heroes and say "yeah she fucking kills all of them eventually, weird huh?"

- Epilogue

   Where does the story go now? Assuming again, that Ward is a standard sequel. Which it heavily implied by Bitch's epilogue, with trigger events now going haywire without Scion and being a very cool way to get his POV on the last few moments of his life. Teacher is doing his thing but again, I assume that wouldn't last for long into a sequel besides getting a new hero protag set-up with someone easy to fight. Dragon and Defiant had a very touching epilogue, and I'm excited that at least they might be around for a whole other 2 million word story. Unsarcastically: these characters are good enough to warrant ~44 YA novels worth of story.  I'd hope that Taylor doesn't make much more than a cameo though, her story is over. But if this story grew to be so epic in scale, its hard to imagine a sequel that wouldn't involve Earth Aleph getting fucked up. Imp is set-up to get a pretty good protag role, I'd wager one of the Heartbreaker kids as the most likely to get the main POV. Someone with the birthright of a villain proving themselves to be a Hero, in contrast to Taylor being a hero trapped as a villain and succoming to the role. Although I've figured out myself that Dragon already fills the role as her foil, being coded and trapped into being a Hero against her will, with the pun of being a "Wyrm". Which might have made for a cool sequel name, albiet a very confusing one when talked about out-loud.

   Is a sequel to a nearly 2 million word story needed? I'd say.... yeah. There's still plenty left unanswered. The Endbringers for instance. It's implied that Eidolon made them, outside the knowledge of anyone else, but only really implied. They go silent after Scion goes down for some reason. How much did The Simurgh know of the future? She was responsible for setting up Panacea's stay in the Birdcage (fitting name here) and of the Yang-Ban Emperor being one that was critical for Taylor to have control over after Panacea fucked up her head. So did she know about Khepri? She was, after all, responsible for setting up Echidna, the only other Human-Turned-Endbringer. And what of Scion's partner? How did Cauldron kill something like that? Granted it was the more passive of the cherubic-twins. (Aranea's talk about Cherubs was before the Interlude about the Entity right? Let's check... Aranea's was in March 2013, 26.X Interlude was in August 2013.... pretty crazy to both have the idea of invincible serpents flying through the multiverse, reproducing by tearing their scales off, with one more aggressive and one more focused on passively studying humans, granted I’m taking some liberties but you get the idea) (Chuckles the Clown raised Scion calling it now).  But I guess the same odds as Vriska/Marceline being introduced the same summer with the defining traits of "grey skin, gay, and loves wearing red-colored boots".

   This would be the part where I talk about how emotionally wrecked I am from this journey being over. Of investing in these characters and seeing them grow up. From clueless children to powerful pseudo-gods with the power to kill unfathomable monstrosities. Of the good times and the bad, of the nostalgia of the simple bank heist scenes, of taking a moment to remember those that didn't make it. Regent, Emma, Clockblocker, Grue, Taylor's virginity. Damn, Clockblocker dieing actually hurt me the most. Maybe I should say a few words about how Worm has changed me as a person and become one of those major pillars supporting my future that I'll someday look back on with "that specifically effected the way I Create" as Homestuck once did.

   But no, I don't get to say that quite yet. Because even after 6 months. Of reading almost nightly since I started on the plane-ride home from spending a weekend across the country with my boyfriend, knowing it would be this long and still not see him again and deciding to start on this  journey to take my mind off being in such an emotional ride home. Thousand of feet in the air and reading about some girl trapped in a bathroom stall having juice poured on her head... Half a year dedicated to Worm, around 5 times longer than it took me to read Homestuck. Nearly 2 million words, an estimated 22 regular novels in length, longer than the entire Percy Jackson series I was obsessed with as a teenager (probably not anymore, theres way too many of those) and now, having read that much, what can I say now?

   There's still more I haven't read.

   Guess this liveblog is gonna keep going into Ward

[coldalbion]

What Is COLD ALBION?

Never the Muse is absent from their ways: lyres clash and flutes cry and everywhere maiden choruses whirling. Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed in their sacred blood; far from labour and battle they live. – Pindar, Tenth Pythian Ode; translated by Richmond Lattimore.

There is a land lost to history, slipping between the cracks and into the depths of mind’s dark seas. An island citadel surrounded by roaring waves and girded by sea-serpents; an Otherland of dark forests and hoary stones raised for mysterious purposes.  Ancient kings and mad wizards rub shoulders with outlaws who live like wolves, and horned warriors dance amidst rumbling storms as ancient long-barrows glow with weird and eldritch light.

Old gods linger at the crossing places and wild hunts careen howling across skies, all made of smoke and fury, while wise women stir cauldrons and fey folk emerge from hiding to play amidst the green. Mighty armies clash in battle, blood staining the hungry soil – earth now black with age and power as dragons coil about the hills and turn lazily in sleep, half closed-eyes burning with the light of the noonday sun.

Bottomless lakes and rushing rivers open their mouths to welcome wave after wave of newcomers, swallowing them up and softening their bones with moss and leaf-mould, nourishing ancient trees long gnarled with age. Deep holes are filled with metal blood and shining veins, their darkness anything but silent as subterranean spirits whistle and knock in the caverns of the deep below.

On the fringes of the world, at the edge of all things it lies – all unyielding. From the isle’s heart bubbles up a freezing  draught so fierce in its bite that it stops the breath, and sends one down amongst the dead to learn their tales and their songs.

To some a sangraal, to others a cauldron and many more things besides, here and now we give it a name thick with meaning:

WYRD’S WELL

From this seed, this thing of root and branch comes a cold conception; a birthing nourished through the ages and aeons before language. Fetched forth from deep chthonic spaces, emerging through the labyrinthine pathways of the mind as a primeval force only discernible by obliqueness, by poetry, song and story.

It is a cold thing precisely because it can only be seen by absence; as temperature is measured in terms of heat, so coldness is only shown by its relation to heat. Yet anyone who has ever felt the cold knows that it is a thing in and of itself, alive and with its own agenda.

So it is with COLD ALBION, a kind of silent monolith amidst roaring seas of dream. It lives and breathes, populated with those things half-seen out of the corner of the eye, irrational and wild. If it has a language, then that speech is black and made of the tongues of birds, the whisper of the wind in the trees, the rushing of rivers and the howls and hoots of beasts. The slow creaking of mountains and the roar of waves against jagged rock is its tone of voice. Its secret names are written in the curtains of rain and iron-grey skies, in the damp green of leaf and thorns hungry for blood; the granite thrust up to break the surface in times long gone is abruptly revealed – born from the broken skin of sleeping giants.

From that wellspring come the weird words; the freezing waters which excite and chill – sending shivers up the spine, shocking us from the everyday. If the primeval tongue be unspoken and occult – hidden from normal eyes – then what are we left with except for the words which reveal it, and in some way become suffused with it?

Ordinary language becomes dismembered and rendered extra-ordinary – the evocative power of the sorcerer-poet in every word; the deep reflexes hidden inside humanity stimulated by a word or phrase. Stories, narratives, all born of those deep places from before ‘human’ existed.

COLD ALBION is indescribable and indirect. Its shape and borders are inviolate because they are incomprehensibly vast and small enough to be encountered through two words. Additionally, it is capable of sustaining myriad interpretations, and this means that it generates those interpretations on contact!

Its kiss against your mind is almost imperceptible, the seeds nestling there, passing all unremarked. Each movement engenders more, until their absence is keenly, terribly felt. Because of this, because of the fact that a hunger has awakened, is it it any wonder that you greedily accept it deeper into yourselves, as it alternately soothes and excites the craving?

Each mind that touches it may find itself co-opted, colonized and reawakened to the strange vitality which rests sleeping beneath the human world.

HERE BE DRAGONS

COLD ALBION is the land of the witch, the warlock, the werewolf and the giant. These were never human, always and ever something else. It is a land of “Once Upon A Time.” A land which exists in parallel to the human, and must do so because any other alternative is unthinkable, because otherwise it, and more importantly Them are already here and always have been.

To suggest such things exist amidst the world of humanity is heresy, almost an attack on reality itself. So such things exist in an ‘unreal’ otherworldly place, because they are themselves otherworldly, their existence becoming mythologized to the point that it is impossible for them to exist within the world of mankind.

But for those of us who draw draw strength and inspiration from such things, and have noticed that strangeness goes hand in hand with the impossible, we experience a fierce joy and exultation.  Soaring as eagles, with shining heads and gleaming feathers, we burrow into secret places, wiser than serpents and nine times more venomous than wyrms.

Let us be clear as crystal, and twice as cold:

COLD ALBION is not within the lands of humankind. It is unbound and uncompromising, beyond any map or territory. Its vitality is incomparable and peerless, and those that feast upon its flesh and drink its mead are forever changed into things made hoary with newness.

To all but a few they appear inhuman and insatiable, inexorable and severe in focus. Are you aware, do you recall those times when some instinct screamed from a million years ago? When some familiar thing in life became strange and the unease that wrought upon you then, and now – as you realize slowly that you comprehend the implications of these words.

Or as it seizes you suddenly in daily life, when next you look in a mirror or taste the bitter tang, you are drawn back to the moment of understanding. It comes like a lightning flash, spoken in the voice behind the blackest of thunder as the wind howls and the rain lashes down, as the sun beats on your flesh or the cold begins to creep inside your bones and chill your skin.

When the unaccountable dread arises from nowhere, you can allow yourself the last comfort, a final hope that exists only for a moment, before being swept away by a raging torrent bursting up from realms before language and thought were ever born:

“This cannot be happening to me.”