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wylanzahn · 3 months

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How do you keep from Copy/Pasting existing Cultures into your Worlds?

Basically just as the title says, and I'm sure there's been pleeeeenty of discussion on the topic, but I'm genuinely curious what makes your cultures unique and original (especially when the modern aura of writing is "everything's been done"). Furthermore, is having a copy/paste culture a bad thing? For context, I'm primarily a Game Master (GM) who also on occasion writes as well as works in the TTRPG actualplay space. When you have an audience (whether friends or fans) is it necessarily a bad thing to have familiar locations, themes, and even characters that mimic real life? Can it be easier for an audience to just assume we're in "Ancient Rome" or "Habsburg controlled Austria"?

For me I do like creating totally original locations with their own weird political systems influenced by magic, gods, monsters, and anything else fantastical--BUT sometimes I find a setting is more interesting of just "what if Romans could directly interact with their deities?". For me I just find the idea of almost "alternate history" but in my uniquely fantastical setting interesting. However, I also understand that some people like genuinely different worlds with no trace of the real world left behind.

When creating unique cultures I try to combine elements to create something more unique. For example I'm currently working on the ancient periods of my current homebrew world, and specifically in a portion I haven't particularly worked on before. In Evrosea, a sort of "ancients world" where Greco-Roman culture lives on well into the medieval 15th Century (of course technology has changed and evolved) I find myself studying more ancient histories. I knew from before I fully began working on worldbuilding Erosea that there was some sort of "Roman Empire" which spread its tongue as a sort of lingua franca across the continent of Dulgren (aka why Common exists in my D&D world). Also originating from the region of Evrosea was the sorta monolithic pantheon of "new gods" (aka Catholicism). So I have the ideas of imperialism and religious importance in this region. So the very clear start was Rome itself, but how could I make this Rome unique? Well here's what I found from my research on Ancient Rome:

Many pre-settlers, and even contemporaries of Ancient Rome, in Italy were nomadic grazers and herders.

The Aeneid, which tells one of the many origin stories of Ancient Rome, ties in the ancient Greek tale of the Trojan War, and makes Rome the successors of Troy.

That many of their religious practices were tied up with the Senate (especially after the abolishment of the crown).

Finally, while perhaps never directly ruled by the Etruscans, their neighbors were much more confederate like and were similar in culture rather than being a unified people or kingdom.

Taking the information I found I twisted and jumbled much of this random history and constructed a group of nomads who controlled the fertile valleys of Uvemos (home region of the ancient Carinaens, my replacement for the Romans).

Many of these nomads worshipped similar sounding gods (if not outright the same gods), and most of them lived off the lands of Uvemos. Only a select few of whom ever settled into cities. However, long after the first nomads of Uvemos walked the hilly countryside arrived a band of pirates and raiders, terrors of the ancient world, many knew not their names, but they quickly accrued a nickname, "The Sea People" (see Sea Peoples on Wikipedia for more, TL;DR a bunch of random marauders who attacked or even helped cause the collapse of some Bronze Age Civilizations). One such pirate was said to be the Prince Laogonus, an exile from Apeiros, who was said to be a direct descendant of the God King Ulios himself. Laogonus settled down on the banks of Janian Sea in a small dirt settlement near to the roaming tribes of Uvemos. Many years later the small city of Carina was established as a blossoming trade hub by the many different tribes of Uvemians. Of these tribes was born a Chieftain's daughter, Aurora. Aurora was said to be descended from the god blood of Ulios, and when she prayed to her great grandsire on the eve of battle she was enveloped in holy light-- thus becoming the world's first cleric. Of her legacy were many rituals formed and practices established, and the civitas mille clericorum* was born.

*(civitas mille clericorum) meaning "city of a thousand clerics," named after the heavy religious undertones established by the first cleric Aurora, at least according to legend.

Super cool right?? I combined some other ideas than the ones I established such as the Sea People from the Collapse of the Bronze Age, as well as these kind of Shinto-like-beliefs in the Carinaen religion, which, to me at least, seems the most like what Ancient Roman beliefs would look like to us today (though I didn't really get to talk about in my blurb). I like taking existing pillars of cultures and extending them, now rather than just being a complete Roman rip-off there's more of this nomadic or tribal culture, at least to early Carinaen history, there's more of a nautical legacy (unlike Rome, who didn't establish a truly working navy up until the Punic Wars), and finally the city of Carina is a beacon for holy warriors and classes like Paladins and Clerics (again this is D&D so that's oriented towards that).

But tell me what you think, and how best do you come up with your fictional cultures/countries? Do you merely copy off of pre-existing cultures or do you fully work from the ground up? I'm super curious to hear what you all have to say!

I'm also tagging a couple friends since I'm curious of your responses @hessdalen-globe, @northernthiefcranberry, @kerghoulen, and the ever wonderful @somethingclevermahogony.

Also guys I need you to pull me out, I'm this close to dropping out of the arts and trying to get into Harvard to do Ancient Studies. Send Help.

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sylvan-librarian · 1 year

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The Last of the Animists: Exploring the Concept of Animism and How it Defines Nissa Revane

Prologue

Since the characterization of Nissa in the Kaladesh block is such a massive undertaking due to the density and quality of material therein, I decided at first to take a little break from my regularly scheduled programming (i.e. - having a public, frenzied, and unhinged obsession with my favorite Magic the Gathering character). However, I couldn’t stay away from the topic entirely, so here we are.

Introduction

The source of Nissa’s magic, its manifestation within Magic’s lore, and how it is represented mechanically on cards has intrigued me to no end over the years. Mechanically, I always felt that Nissa’s cards stood out more than the other two regularly-printed green planeswalkers (Garruk and Vivien). Garruk and Vivien cards often do what you would imagine a green planeswalker would do: create 3/3 green beast creature tokens, tutor creatures from your library, give overrun effects to your board, etc. The design space across these two characters’ cards always felt limited and uninspired to me. One of the things that intrigued me about Nissa, Worldwaker (read about my love for that card here) when I first encountered it in 2014 was the fact that it played around with lands rather than creatures: it animated lands into beaters, it untapped lands, it fetched lands from its owner’s library. This struck me as a unique, inspired design at the time, and it made me feel excited to use the card.

However, while yes, I have always found Nissa’s skillset a unique design for green planeswalkers – a fact that makes the desparkening all that much more disappointing to me – my primary interest in Nissa’s magic as a deranged Vorthos is how it is described in and displayed throughout the stories.

Nissa, as we are often told in post-“Nissa, Worldwaker” stories, is the last of the animists, a rare type of mage on Zendikar who can hear the voice of the world itself, but the plane of Zendikar rarely had anything nice to say; in “Nissa's Origin: Home,” Nissa’s mother, Meroe says that the soul of the land, which so often is a source of terrible nightmares for Nissa, “was never after anything other than random destruction.” Animism, we learn, is a taboo brand of magic to the Joraga (the tribe Nissa belongs to), and Numa, the Joraga chieftain, exiles Nissa because he, like many others, believes that the inherent anger of the land is due to some untold, unknown blasphemy enacted on the world by the animists. He tells Meroe, “[y]our people angered Zendikar and they paid the price. There is a reason that you are the last of the animists.” We come to understand that the reason for the plane of Zendikar’s anger is due to the Eldrazi Titans’ imprisonment on it. The world recoils in disgust at the eldritch monstrosities who eternally strive to break free of their imprisonment and consume and pervert every living thing in their way; the plane’s anger feels justified in this light, but almost no one on Zendikar understands this, not even Nissa or her mother.

So in short, animism in Magic the Gathering is the ability to connect with the soul of the world itself which allows animists like Nissa to (among other things) animate the land itself into living creatures that can fight alongside them.

However, the concept of animism has meaning beyond the lore of Magic; why did Magic’s designers label Nissa’s powers this way, and how can a real world understanding of animism help us understand Nissa in a new way?

Part I: The Animation of All Nature

Animism is a term developed all the way back in the 1870’s by British anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor as a method to describe similarities in “primitive” religions. Let’s take a quick moment to acknowledge that Tylor was a bearded white man living in colonial-era Britain using words like “primitive” to describe the religions and philosophies of people he will never meet, many of whom were currently unwilling subjects of his own government. This is an unfortunate commonality in academic studies. That aside, Tylor’s description of animism gives us our first understanding of this term. He writes in his 1871 anthropological treatise Primitive Culture that “[f]irst and foremost among the causes which transfigure into myths the facts of daily experience, is the belief in the animation of all nature, rising at its highest pitch to personification” (emphasis mine). In other, simpler words, animists personify the natural world, assigning traditionally human traits to immobile objects. The root of the current English word animate, after all, comes from the Latin animus, which means “soul, spirit, mind.” The “animation of all nature,” then, refers to the belief that what we might call objects of the natural world have their own interiority. Tylor writes elsewhere that animism is

[a]n idea of pervading life and will in nature far outside modern limits, a belief in personal souls animating even what we call inanimate bodies, a theory of transmigration of souls as well in life as after death, a sense of crowds of spiritual beings sometimes flitting through the air, but sometimes also inhabiting trees and rocks and waterfalls, and so lending their own personality to such material objects.

Humanity’s relationship to nature, then, becomes that of subject-subject rather than that of subject-object.

What does this say about Nissa, though? If you’re thinking that the above description is frighteningly similar to how Nissa views the world, you’d be right. While what Tylor argued back in the 1870’s was that animism is a crude belief system that would eventually evolve to the rise of world religions and later on the rejection of religion in rational society, Nissa’s practice of animism is very much alive and vibrant. It is hammered home often that Nissa deeply respects the personhood of objects, whether they be trees, animals, or even the ground itself. We see this very clearly in this long selection from the beginning of the Battle for Zendikar story “The Silent Cry”:

Every day there was something new, something Zendikar taught Nissa that surprised and delighted her. The land had hundreds of magnificent secrets, and it was sharing them with her. She would never have guessed that the giant mantises secreted a scent meant to simulate the odor of fresh worms and thus attract small song birds—but not for the mantises to prey on, rather for the purpose of enjoying the birds' melodies. The songs were one of the few things capable of lulling the mantises into an easy sleep. Nor would she have known that the vines draped between the close-growing, towering heart trees of the Vastwood Forest were more like arms than vines—arms that were holding hands. Each vine grew out of the trunks of two trees; it did not belong to one tree more than the other, it was shared equally between them, a tether that bound the trees. The vines connected one heart tree with its chosen companion, and allowed the two to share memories, feelings, and dreams. These trees were linked forever; they mated for life. And the gnarlids, the silly, beastly, sneaky gnarlids; they had a ritual that they managed to keep hidden from most everyone else on Zendikar. On the darkest nights, when there was no moon but the skies were clear, the gnarlids scaled the tallest trees, poking their heads above the canopies, and they laughed at the stars. Little breathy snickers that to anyone else listening sounded like nothing more than the leaves of the highest branches rustling in the wind. It was an inside joke meant only for them. Equally as impressive was the tribe of humans who lived in the lowest canopy of the Vastwood's trees—not in a central encampment, but spread out through the expanse of the forest. Five or six humans shared each treehouse hamlet, and there were over a dozen hamlets. The tribe was able to stay well informed of each other's movements and needs thanks to their ancestors, who had closely studied the language of the chatter sloths. The people sent messages to each other by speaking to the nearest chatter sloth. It was only a matter of minutes before the sloth would relate the gossip to its neighbors, who would pass it along through the network of tree dwellers. Soon all humans in the tribe would know of the hamlet's news thanks to the little gossipmongers.

It’s important here that Nissa shares equal amazement with the goings on of plants and animals as she does with the ingenuity of her fellow sentient mortals; to her, they are no different. To Nissa, the “animation of all nature” is not some crude, outdated philosophy that has been surpassed by rationality. It is her everyday reality.

Of course, however, Magic the Gathering is a game of wizards battling each other, and its worlds and characters are full of wonder and, well, magic. The “animation of all nature” has another meaning to Nissa in that she can call out to the interior soul of immobile objects and, in a non-metaphorical way, personify them … as in, she can “animate” objects into living, walking, thinking, fighting creatures with a will of their own. In the first story of the Zendikar Rising arc, “In the Heart of the Skyclave,” Nissa and Nahiri, looking for a specific object of interest, are at a loss at which place to begin hunting for it in a giant, city-sized airborne dungeon when Nissa spots a lone fern:

Nissa crouched down to one of the ferns. Its leaves were as large as she was, but its flowers were tiny, delicate, and blue. "How is it possible for plants to thrive here?" Nahiri asked, coming up behind her. Nissa smiled. "You'd be surprised at how many things thrive in unlikely places on this plane." "How—" Nahiri began to speak again, but Nissa tuned her out. She rested a hand on the top of the fern, like a parent's hand on the head of a child. She closed her eyes and felt its life under her fingers, felt its struggle and its pride in surviving in such a foreboding place. Nissa smiled at that strength and that pride. And she called it forth. She heard Nahiri give a gasp as the elemental emerged into existence. It was a tall thing, twice her height, green and vibrant as its life force, its head a mass of fronds with small chains of blue flowers entwining its arms and neck.

The dual meaning of the “animation of all nature” is on display here. Nissa very clearly acknowledges the personhood of the fern, using terms usually reserved for descriptions of the lives of people like struggle and pride, and at the same time she animates the stationary fern into a creature, a person with a will of its own and strength to match. In the end, many elements of the Zendikar Rising arc were lacking, but I always found this particular scene to be a wonderful marriage of the best parts of Magic story: great character moments tied together with a childlike wonder at the beauty and power of magic.

Part II: Infinite Possibilities

Anthropology, however, has moved far beyond its Victorian, colonialist roots. On the same note, Nissa has grown and expanded far beyond the borders of what she previously was.

In 2006, anthropologist Tim Ingold published an essay titled Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought that reevaluates the concept of animism (there are, of course, many evolutionary steps between the philosophies of 1871 and those of 2006, but for the purposes of this piece, suffice it to say that things have changed). Ingold’s primary thesis is that animism should be considered less of a primitive branch of religious thought and more of an ontological philosophy, an experience of being present in the world. In his research, Ingold provides this anecdote:

One man from among the Wemindji Cree, native hunters of northern Canada, offered the following meaning to the ethnographer Colin Scott. Life, he said, is ‘continuous birth.’ I want to nail that to my door! It goes to the heart of the matter. To elaborate: life in the animic ontology is not an emanation but a generation of being, in a world that is not pre-ordained but incipient, forever on the verge of the actual. One is continually present as witness to that moment, always moving like the crest of a wave, at which the world is about to disclose itself for what it is.

This is a lot to unpack, but let’s use this to point out the similarities and differences between the previous 1871 understanding of animism. Like Tylor’s initial exploration of the concept, Ingold’s animists still treat the world around them with same respect and reverence; they still, in other words, still interact with the world with a subject-subject relationship instead of a more rational subject-object relationship. However, instead of fixating on the spiritual aspects of animism (i.e. - the inherent soul of inanimate objects), this modern take is more of a state of being, a practice of actively engaging with the world around you.

Ingold, in other places, argues that, while yes, animism intentionally blurs the line between what is considered ‘alive’ and what is not, the true cornerstone of an animist ontology is the process of change:

Wherever there is life there is movement … The movement of life is specifically of becoming rather than being, of renewal along a path rather than displacement in space. Every creature, as it ‘issues forth’ and trails behind, moves in its characteristic way. The sun is alive because of the way it moves through the firmament, but so too are the trees because of the particular ways their boughs sway or their leaves flutter in the wind, and because of the sounds they make in doing so.

An animist, then, in this ontology is in a responsive, conversational relationship with the world around them. They wouldn’t fixate, for example, on the personhood of a tree, but they would know how to have a positive, symbiotic relationship with the tree.

What does this new way of looking at animism have to do with Nissa Revane, though? It seemed like Tylor’s outdated definition of animism already had both Nissa’s worldview and the manifestation of her magic pegged down. What could be added? Well, like the definition of animism, like this “world that is not pre-ordained but incipient, forever on the verge of the actual,” Nissa herself has changed drastically in recent years.

If I had the time and bandwidth, I might set out to argue that, of all Magic’s heroes in the last decade, Nissa has gone through the most character growth of any of them; she has shifted through the most colors and she has gone through the most development of any other planeswalker. However, for the purposes of this piece, I’m going to focus on the most recent story (to date) that Nissa has appeared in: Grace P. Fong’s “She Who Breaks the World.” Now, I’ve made it no secret that this is my favorite piece of Magic fiction since the Ixalan days, so I’m certainly biased here, but the narrative meat in this text is rich and vibrant.

When we pick back up with Nissa in “She Who Breaks the World,” we find her at likely the lowest point we have ever seen her at. Her agonies are manyfold at this point. To start, she is still reeling from the unbearable trauma of what the Phyrexians did to her. She had set out with a strike team of her planeswalker allies to stop the Phyrexian invasion of the multiverse, but upon their failure, Nissa, along with many of the others, were captured. Her mind was chemically altered against her will to be utterly, completely submissive to the will of Elesh Norn (the Phyrexian leader, if this essay somehow reaches beyond the MTG sphere). Similarly, her body (again, against her will) was then chemically and mechanically altered to be more in line with the Phyrexian understanding of perfection. Then, Norn used Nissa’s body, mind, and animist powers to launch an invasion of the entire multiverse; Nissa ended up being instrumental in this process because it was her animist abilities that allowed Norn to directly control the Invasion Tree.

Nissa was eventually freed from the Phyrexians’ control in the aftermath of the war, her mind given back to her, and as much of the grafted metal removed from her body as could safely be removed. However, no level of healing could “cleanse the memories of what she had done” while her mind was under the domination of Phyrexia. She understandably has trouble forgiving herself for what she did, whether she had agency in the act or not.

Secondly, if that wasn’t bad enough, after she woke up with her mind intact, she discovered that she had lost her planeswalker spark. While she is not alone in this (all of the other planeswalkers currently on Zhalfir aside from Chandra lost theirs as well), it hits Nissa particularly hard because, for one Nissa has always had a deep connection to her home world of Zendikar, and secondly, Zhalfir is full of people she tried to ruthlessly kill while under the influence of Phyrexia. She cut down in cold blood dozens, if not hundreds, of these survivors’ friends and family. While the surviving Mirrans and Zhalfrins understand that she did not have control of herself during this time and forgave her, Nissa does not feel incredibly comfortable living around people she so directly harmed. She is restlessly homesick with no feasible way to get home and stuck with people she doesn’t feel worthy enough to be around. Furthermore, Nissa’s planeswalker powers are integral to the identity she has created for herself. This sense of self is just one more thing she has lost.

And lastly, there is the issue with Chandra. While they were technically a romantic couple after they kissed at the end of the previous March of the Machines story, “The Rhythms of Life,” things are still far from well between them. Apart from the tremendous guilt and shame Nissa feels from what she did to Chandra during the Phyrexian story arc (Nissa almost killed Chandra multiple times, one time even impaling her), both of them are still dealing with the fallout of their breakup as described in War of the Spark: Forsaken (even typing the name of that book makes me feel ill). Nissa wonders if Chandra can ever love her the way she needs and if that is even a reasonable thing to ask of her after all the two of them have recently gone through.

While this was a long, drawn-out summary, I think it was necessary to show what Nissa is going through on the cusp of her metamorphosis. The depression she is feeling along with what could probably be described as PTSD has left her stuck in the past. She laments the fact that she no longer hears the voice of nature. The leyline songs are completely silent, and when she calls out to the soul she knows dwells in all the objects in the world around her, nothing answers. She assumes this is punishment for what the Phyrexians made her do.

She’s wrong, however. Nissa and Chandra finally have a moment of understanding between the two of them, and as a part of this intimate moment, Nissa finally admits that her animist power no longer work; when Chandra expresses surprise at this, Nissa responds,

"They won't listen to me. I tried. Many times. But when I call out to them, it's like my voice isn't my own. Like it belongs to Phyrexia instead, like everything I've ever connected to is drowning me out." For once, Chandra pauses. "You know," she concludes. "You have good connections, too." "What do you mean?" "It's true—you did bad things while they had you. But everyone you've connected with over the years with the Gatewatch, we're just happy you're still here. With us." Chandra sets fire to a chunk of moist dirt that was about to fall on Nissa, turning it into a soft rain of ash. "With me." For the first time since she awoke in Zhalfir, Nissa smiles. Chandra, sweet Chandra, even if she doesn't realize it, has always understood and explained emotions better than Nissa ever could. Chandra continues, "Your connections aren't drowning your voice, Nissa. They're changing it into something new, maybe something even more powerful. Infinite voices, infinite possibilities, right?" Infinite possibilities. Nissa offers her hand to Chandra. "All right, let's try." Gripping Chandra's fingers in hers, Nissa closes her eyes. She retreats inward and listens for her inner voice. It's hard, much harder than before, but Chandra is dutifully helping her concentrate, blasting the falling rock away before it can reach her.

Nissa is greeted by ringing deep in her ears, but she refuses to be deterred. With her connections in mind, she picks the static apart into unique melodies, the individual songs she picked up from all around the Multiverse. She arranges them, harmonizes them, and this time, when she calls to Zhalfir, her voice is amplified in chorus. She offers an apology. The plane answers. It too was cut off from everything it knew, from the connections it had made. It, too, was scarred by Phyrexia and is growing into something new. It forgives her, and Nissa can finally forgive herself. Magic floods her flesh, her blood, her bone. She hears Chandra laugh, delighted by their success.

I could literally talk forever about this scene, how it is also a marriage of everything I love about Magic Story, but let’s zero in on how Nissa’s change in perspective is similar to how animism has changed meanings over the past one-hundred and fifty years.

In the same way that Tylor was fixated on how “primitive” he felt animism was, how it was just a cultural stepping stone on the way to enlightenment, Nissa remained fixated on her animist powers. To her, the voices of the natural world were oftentimes more real to her than the voices of her friends. The songs of the leylines, the elementals she could animate with a whisper, the power she wielded in defense of the worldsoul … To Nissa, these were all in all.

However, what Nissa learns from Chandra in the climax of “She Who Breaks the World'' is to accept that life is exactly what Ingold calls a “continuous birth.” Nissa embraces this conversational relationship with the world around her, and nature is no longer all in all to her. Hand in hand with Chandra, Nissa now lives “in a world that is not pre-ordained but incipient, forever on the verge of the actual,” as Ingold puts it, and a world of “infinite possibilities,” as Fong puts it.

As the definition of real-world animism has shifted over the years, so too has Nissa’s magical animism. She used to obsess over her connection with nature with religious fervor, and even though Nissa worshiped no gods, her devotion to the soul of the world around her was stronger than many devout worshippers on Theros. However, in “She Who Breaks the World,” Nissa learns to recognize that she, and the rest of the world around her, is alive because she moves in her own “characteristic way.”

Epilogue

While I have certainly been burned by WotC’s treatment of Nissa in the past, I am cautiously excited for the stories that can now be told about her. Nissa is currently set up to grow and expand in interesting ways, and I hope (beyond hope) that future Magic stories starring Nissa will continue on the path that Fong set her on.

Nissa may be the last of the animists, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be the first of something else. I’m excited to see what that “something else” will be.

Bibliography

Every source quoted in this essay is linked directly before the quote in question. I was too lazy to create a reference page today. Sorry! 😬

#magic the gathering #nissa revane #vorthos #animism #media analysis #chandra nalaar

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voidsentprinces · 17 days

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Void, your AU doesn't sound so bad.

List of things that are happening in Voidsent AU:

Voidsent Prince exist imagine the Archfiends able to just summon the swarms of Voidsent they call on but all across Eorzea like Lightwardens do. The only saving grace is most of the Princes are cognitive and have control over these mass swarms. But if one were inclined to do so, they could overwhelm an area in a bell. While five of these Princes are said to been hunt down by the Void Hunter's Guild. Wrath and Sloth have been missing. No one has spotted or met them but they are speculated to exist since the others introduced themselves as Envy, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, and Pride.

There is a fog over the northern sector of the Central Shroud. No one who goes into it, no matter if its a skilled adverturer, explore, or a Garlean Legion ever come out. If they do, they are catatonic or incoherent. It is impossible to reach the Haukke Manor or cross over to the Fallgourd Float area from here. Even the gate's watchmen have to be changed out every 2 - 4 days or they have a psychological breakdown. At the same time this fog mysterious descended, the Padjal and Gridania loss all communication with the Elementals.

The Sahagin are at war with one of the Voidsent Princes, Envy. Who has been going on one-man raids against the Breeding Grounds. Slaughtering entire clutches of the Tribes out of spite. Limsa Lominsa can't really send a parlay in to aid the tribes without drawing the ire of the Prince. And the Leviathan and Titan summonings from Kobolds in reaction, have become increasingly more and more desperate. Threatening to wipe La Noscea off the map from earthquakes and tidal waves.

Ishgard has "fallen" for 20 years after a cult known as the Sanguine Court, rose up and over threw the Holy See. Only a few of its Noble Houses escaped to Gridania in the process. It would be bearable if the Sanguine Court sent out hostile forces to attack Gridania or Idyllshire or any of the surrounding area. But after the initial take over, its just been dead silence. Nothing comes out of Ishgard, nothing goes into Ishgard. Garlemald sent a few legions to go test its defenses and a few spies to information gather. None ever came out.

Recently a skirmish in Eastern Shroud near Baelsar's Wall turned into a route. The Knights of Ishgard Exiled and the Twin Adders were pushed out of the region as Garlemald pushed its way fully into the Shroud proper. They razed the Slyphlands after Gridania and her allies were forced into a retreat.

Gridania is completely isolated. During the Battle of Carteneau it revealed a being they aided in stopping most of the damage of Dalamud's Fall with the aid of Louisoix. But in revealing such a being who also survived, where Louisoix perished, it alienated Ul'dah and Limsa Lominsa from dealing with Gridania. Forcing them to face Garlemald, the mysterious fog, and the occupation of Ishgard by the exile's foes on its own.

All of this is troublesome. But worse of all, at random intervals for seemingly no reason. Something has occasionally taken over bodies of people. Male, Female, Beast Tribe, Soldier. Garlemald, the East, Thavnair, Sharlayan, La Noscea, etc. It doesn't seem to matter. From time to time, it just...occurs. The person's eyes with be covered in black as they bleed black out of their orifices. They will go into a fit for a short period. Before, whatever it is, takes over motor controls. It will either grow extremely hostile trying to kill everything around it or it will drop dead soon after. The few who survive a run in with it say the person possess will just keep asking the same question over and over: "Where is my, son?"

#{ Void didn't you just say the Void Hunter's Guild hunted down Envy? }#{ Well yeah you think that would stop him from just appearing again and causing trouble? }

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honey-minded-hivewing · 3 months

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Platonic Yandere SeaWing Queen... (Either an OC, or imagine Storm the X-Man) (especially the Evolution version)

She's somehow your mom. Maybe you were stolen as an egg, and had only found your way home now. Maybe you were raised separately by a family member, or an enemy to the crown. Or maybe you're a commoner, a random dragonet or young adult who she simply believed, full heartedly, was her baby.

And now she won't leave you alone.

Wherever you go, she's either with you, or one of your many siblings is, or your cousins, or her top guards. It doesn't matter if you're going to the Summer Palace or to the Deep Palace, out hunting fish or gathering pearls, flying or swimming, awake or asleep, someone has to be watching you at all times. It's maddening. Amd the nicknames! Babyfins, angelfish, little pearl, sweet anemone, cuddly seal- She doesn't care if you like it or not, she's calling you that, for everyone to hear, and no one questions her or laughs, in fear she'll cut out their tongue or pop off their scales one by one...

Your family loves you, reminds you of it every day. They don't mind being cruel to others if they think they're a danger to you, and certainly don't mind offing any enemies you have. It's scary, but all you can do is request they either imprison them or exile them, otherwise your new "family" will decide what the proper punishment is for them...

You can tell your... mother... is trying. She's not a bad queen, or a bad matriarch to the royal family, but she... she doesn't stand disobedience. Or questioning her authority. Or defying her or the family. She rewards those who show especially charitable acts or help the tribe majorly. She punishes those who try to hurt her dragons or betray the tribe. She let's you eat with the rest of the family and council. She makes sure you're sleeping in a comfortable kelp bed in a room with her or your siblings or cousins. She makes sure you aren't lonely. But she won't ever let you go, or let you out of sight...

(Platonic yamdere SeaWing Queen OC is named: Queen Turquoise)

Platonic yamdere SeaWing Queen Storm is named: Queen Maelstrom)

(I will write a list for the names of the platonic yamdere SeaWing X-Men... Imagine their Evolution versions if you want, since it helps give Reader more siblings or cousins, which is a SeaWing royal family special...)

#platonic yamdere xmen #platonic yamdere wings of fire #platonic yamdere queen maelstrom #platonic yamdere storm #platonic yamdere ororo munroe #🐠SeaWings #platonic yamdere queen turquoise #platonic yandere

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fextsubs · 3 months

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Hi! I have a question that might be a little random as it is not related to anything you guys post on here, but I am a new (international) Exile Tribe fan (especially RMPG and Fanta). And I am visiting Tokyo this August, which is when several Battle of Tokyo concerts are taking place. I really want to go, but the ticket sale confuses me a lot (as I don't speak Japanese) and I am not sure how to go about this. Do any of you have any experience with this and could you help? Thank you in advance<3

The easiest option for foreigners is to use Ticketbook, but you'll need to have a Japan-registered smartphone. You can use a proxy service like bridge.jpn or ticket-japaaan so they can buy the tickets for you (their pages will explain a bit more on how to use their service). However, please note that they will be using a lottery system for tickets so the chances you actually win the lottery to then get the chance to buy tickets are still up in the air.

Neither admin has experience with attending concerts in Japan or using the above proxy services so, um, be careful and good luck!

#ask

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pink-horizon · 8 months

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📀 ׄ 𝗃𝗎𝗌𝗍 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾 𝖽𝖺𝗍 . ✶

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thistaleisabloodyone · 5 months

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I just got into Exile tribe as a whole. I love it here, btw lol. But I have a question: What do you mean by "the musha shugyo did cause a collective mental breakdown"

I noticed The Rampage debuted but then was put on a hiatus. Is that the main reason? Or was a reason given?

Hello! Welcome, glad you're here and enjoying it 😊

Due their intensive training, the musha shugyo, before the final line up was decided, they all thought members would be cut. It wasn't clear how large the intended lineup was and how many candidates would be kept.

The vocalists especially thought only two would be in the final line up, because Exile Tribe had never had more than two vocalists to a group before - Exile, Exile the Second, JSB3 and GENE were the only other groups at the time and they were all the twin vocal set up. [random aside - While Exile flirts with being a three/four vocal group occasionally, that's a very recent development.]

So the members were living together in the dorms and competing with each other (so they believed) for a final spot in the line up. Considering they were teenagers, for the most part, at the time, that's a lot of stress for a bunch of kids to be under.

Likiya was 23. Zin turned 20 not long before the intensive training started. And those are the oldest two! There were four birthdays during the musha shugyo - Makoto turned 16, Riku turned 20, Rui turned 19, and Ryu turned 16. Takahide and Takuma did not turn 16 until after the line up was finalized. They were both 15 the whole time

Because they were under so much stress, in such a "You're living with and fighting with these boys for your future" way, as essentially teenagers, they - didn't know if they wanted to continue being in the Rampage even after the lineup was finalized. That was part of the hiatus, from finalized lineup to debut, was they sent everyone back home, the members picked up jobs at EXPG schools and other places, and had to decide if they wanted to keep going, if they wanted to stay the Rampage. All three vocalists apparently told their parents they wanted to quit.

Thankfully, they decided to stick together, but that - wasn't a guarantee, as far as I can tell.

Since Riku is my boy, I've spent a lot of time poking around and he brings up being thankful that he didn't quit in a few places, and I found a voice clip that was subtitled in Japanese, which I transcribed and threw into a machine translator:

Q: Was there ever a time when you thought Riku-san wasn't cut out to be a vocalist? Riku: Of course I did. There were times when I thought it would be better if I quit, and there are many times when I think, "RAMPAGE doesn't need me,'' or "The other fifteen members can do it without me.'' But I can't lie about my feelings like, ``I love music, I love singing.'' I just love RAMPAGE.

I am wondering if that intensely stressful time is why it feels like they spent so much of their early career stressing that they're sixteen. The Rampage is 16, you can't take away one and still have the Rampage. Now I feel there's less of an emphasis on being 16 and they seem to be branching out individually more.

But, yeah. They had a group mental breakdown because they thought they were competing with each other for space in the final group.

#the rampage from exile tribe #the rampage #my boys my beloved idiots #i do occasionally wanna grab suribo #and be like 'guys guys wtf was the audition for if not narrowing it down to you three'#and go on the rampage was the song written for their musha shugyo #a song that is almost perfectly evenly divided between three #exile tribe #thistale answers #numinousredpanda

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hopkei · 1 year

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🌒9/14/23🌒

#sato taiki #fantastics #fantastics from exile tribe #exile #japanese actor #jpop #around 1/4 #佐藤大樹 #taiki will really drop the most beautiful intense world ending photos and then just caption them “I love fashion! :)”#this photoset is a whole movie that has ripped my soul to shreds and he just posted it on a random thursday #he wants me to die and is making it very clear #fuckn :)

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papermonkeyism · 6 months

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Me age 13: "omg, this is the best book ever I love it so much!"

Me age 20: "ugh, this is the worst book I've ever read, I hate it."

Me age 36: "this is a DnD campaign."

So I made it through the second book of the Icewind Dale trilogy, Streams of Silver, in my nostalgia trip.

And yeah. It's a game of DnD.

Specifically, it's a bunch of Tolkien fan boys having fun playing a fantasy fighting game and being awesome, and, yeah, it does its job.

It's still lacking in things I like in stories, but I can see where this is coming from. I prefer characters with more emotional depth and them having more natural feeling interactions, and deeper world building. But this is a game for people who like feeling awesome in a traditionally heroic way, and experience similar stuff as with their favourite books.

The characters are more archetype-ish/stereotypey, because they're written as player characters instead of complex people. There are A LOT of bad guys and evil creatures that the heroes have to fight, because DnD is a game built around a fighting mechanism, and campaigns are built with Random Encounters so the players can engage with the mechanics of the game they're playing. So this area has orcs in it, that will fight you. This bit here has human barbarian tribes that will fight you (and have some Unfortunate Implications about "noble savages" and their belief system being built aroud this monster creature from another plane of existence and other fun eighties tropes, but it's not like they get mentioned again after the encounter.) You failed a persuation roll to let this one town's guards let you pass because your elf hails from an evil elf race even if he himself is a good individual, and him having black skin marks him as dangerous to people (no wonder many modern depictions of drow have them more purple or gray than flat out black), so you are forced to take a detour through this swamp area that's full of trolls that will all attack you. And there's a giant snake that will attack you. And so forth.

And the Tolkien really shows! You could probably make a drinking game out of spotting all the Tolkien references, just the amount of times the word "mithril" gets thrown around could be one on its own.

So one of the main characters is a dwarf king of a lost underground dwarf kingdom, the Mithril Halls, who's ancient home got taken over by a shadow dragon which drove them to exile, and the Main Quest is to go find it and take it back (Hobbit). (None of his other clan mates from the Icewind Dale seem to remember or care enough to join their king in his search, but that's not the point, because you only got four players and they all picked different races. It's a game, your supposed to build it for them to play, that's the whole point.) Once they get to the place, there's a kinda "Mines of Moria" feeling scene of them wondering how to open the door, though the solution to it is more DnD feeling than that of Lord of the Rings. Though, speaking of Moria, remember how awesome the Gandalf vs Balrog scene was? Good news! We liked it too, so much so that we did the whole "beloved hero falls to a 'certain death' in the depths of the mine while fighting a bad guy/evil being" thing TWICE! Oh, and did your players like Galadriel? You have a nice GM who gives you a magical queen NPC (who's name even rhymes with her), who comes to the heroes' aid by giving advice and helpful items, except even better, because what if she also had a crush on your favourite character?

Sprinkle in a group of evil rivals, with a nemesis for the favourite character ("narrative foil" kinda feels like an understatement, though, as Entreri gets introduced as a dark mirror for Drizzt with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer), couple evil wizards, a fun and quirky family of good wizards for a fun interlude for your players, and few other fun and magical encounters, some cool loot, and a classic damsel in distress (though I do give credit for Catti-Brie actually having a role in this book. I hated the way she got kidnapped and damselled when I read the book last time, but on a re-read now, I do see her being clever and using her situation to sabotage her kidnappers, even if teenage me was very disappionted in how she didn't pick up a sword and do the awesome battle stuff herself).

(Okay, so this is just me theorizing, and I don't really have any factual basis for this, but I kinda get the feeling like Wulfgar was originally planned as the "young hero protagonist" of these books, but Drizzt ended up a lot more interesting of a character, and the stories just gravitated to focus on him instead as the author's fave. Not that a similar thing would have ever happened to me or anything, haha...)

Like. This book still isn't my thing, really. I very much prefer deeper and more rounded character writing and more thought out worldbuilding, but I must admit, realizing that this book was basically a game of Dungeons and Dragons kinda made the whole experience so much more enjoyable. Even if I spent the entire time reading thinking about the players of the characters instead of the characters themselves as people, but still.

You made the story out of reshuffled Tolkien tropes but edgier, put in some whimsy nonsense that makes no logical sense, and had tons and tons of really flat enemies that kept spawning and aggroing your party like video game mooks. Aww, sounds like a fun campaign, your players must have had great time!

... I should probably re-read Lord of the Rings one of these days.

#shut up paper #I think I need a tag for these

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