#khetzal + the sun as the world

[tiktaaliker]

anywayz im not going to be ACTUALLY doing this for a while but. this is what started my oooooh oc tarot card thoughts and ideas. gazer/rasputin as the tower....

[mortallycoiled]

first part of the mortally coiled timeline, covering the Creation Era. The Creation Era (or first era) is the longest era by far due to spanning from the formation of the Mortal Coil up the first death credited to Noxa Krov. i haven't nailed down the actual span yet, so it's not to scale (especially considering the time pre-main world life is a way way way WAY longer time span than the rest of the era. the little squiggle between the creation of the first sun and khetzal encompasses an impossibly long and practically uncountable amount of time.)

[tiktaaliker]

alright so current plot synopsis of the null v nil portion of mortally coiled that nobody probably wanted or asked for, but if you DID want to actually hear about it this is probably way longer than you've ever wanted or expected:

though a bit obtuse and quite a bit cliche, it starts with the creation of the universe- or more specifically and more accurately, the creation of the Mortal Coil.

the three major beings (and the only relevant ones, for now) in the Eternal Coil are Hark, Lythe, and Sar'Kai. In relation to the Mortal Coil, they're less like gods and more like... demiurges, for lack of a better term.

the early stages of the Mortal Coil were stars and little else, crafted entirely by Hark. Sar'kai's first impact on the Mortal Coil was destroying one of the stars, and Lythe made a living thing from the resulting star-fragments. that first living thing would later become Khetzal, immortal prophet and sun-eater, but that is a story for another time.

eventually, the three diversified- Hark created planets, and (in jealousy of Lythe's first creation) the first mortals, populating a world with flora and fauna alike. Sar'kai gave the mortals death, and sickness, and fear, and hunger. Lythe took a dead star and split it into four, gifting the pieces to a chosen four mortals, granting them and all their descendants sentience and sapience.

Hark grew angry with the other two for meddling in what they believed was their creation and theirs alone, but Sar'Kai was the greater offense in their eyes. Sar'Kai was and had been destroying their work, and that was unacceptable.

Over ages and centuries, Hark turned Lythe against the third- Sar'Kai was ruining the Coil, they claimed, and eventually Lythe believed it. While Sar'Kai could not be killed (as death was not a natural part of the Eternal Coil), they could, theoretically, be displaced. For what in the Mortal Coil would be generations on generations, they gathered power. Hark saved their energy, and Lythe would hold back a tiny portion of the starstuff from departed mortals whenever one died.

Sar'Kai was banished from the Eternal Coil into the Mortal Coil. It was not a good plan.

Those in the Eternal Coil cannot thrive in the Mortal Coil. They are incompatible. Banishing an Eternal to the Mortal Coil is similar in effect to throwing a soul into a blender. The Mortal Sar'Kai was a being of pure hatred and blind destruction, a hulking, unkillable beast that devoured anything in its path. Mortals did not recognize this thing as the Sar'Kai of legend, worshiped by some as a god alongside their brethren; they thought this thing a killer of worlds. They knew it as Noxa Krav, Dragon of the End and Apocalypse Incarnate.

Those spared from Noxa Krav's wrath worked day in and day out to find a way to kill the seemingly unkillable. Mage's Towers were some of the few truly safe places left, as the magic-wielders were able to stall or evade the Dragon's warpath for the time being.

However, it was not a member of these Mage's Towers that finally stopped Noxa Krav, but a Novice mage from a small town directly in the Dragon's path. The Novice in a desperate attempt to protect their friends and family devised a spell to trap Noxa Krav and rip the soul from it's body, ripping it to shreds and effectively killing the beast.

They confronted the dragon, and Noxa Krav walked directly into their spell circle. Unfortunately for the Novice, an Eternal is made from different stuff than a Mortal, and Sar'Kai would not be destroyed so easily. The soul was successfully ripped from the mortal body, but so vast and alien that the Novice was only able to tear it once rather than into infinitely small pieces. It used so much power that the Novice's very being imploded, wiping them and their memory from common existence. They would recover, eventually, but that is a story for a different time.

Sar'Kai, no longer Noxa Krav, was now split into two. In the chaos, the two halves scattered- one fled into the wilderness, and one deep into a pitch-dark cave.

This is where our story actually begins.

The cave-dark soul and the wilderness soul alike form into more solid, material mortal shells as time goes on. While the wilderness soul has a form more similar to their predecessor, occupying a similar niche, the cave-dark soul adapts to the environment. Instead of eyes, they sense the world with heat and sound and reflective radio-waves on the cave walls. Their body is more stone than flesh, their teeth strong enough to bite through and eat the hard rock in the lack of other food.

With one of the three major forces of the Mortal Coil indisposed, the universe rebalances. To fill the now-empty niche, beings known as Sundogs come to be. They each fulfill a role that was previously done by Sar'Kai, now performed within the Coil rather than outside of it.

The Sundogs eventually learn of the two half-souls of Sar'Kai. Some wish to restore the Eternal to their former power, and seek them out.

The wilderness half, which calls itself Nil, is found first by Tyto, Sundog of the Hunt. Tyto believes that Sar'Kai must be restored by the recombining of the half-souls, and the best way to do so is for one to kill the other. Nil is Tyto's champion, and they will kill the cave-dark soul.

Far later, the cave-dark soul is found by a gentler sort. Fane, Sundog of Lies, waits for the cave-dark soul to emerge. It does, eventually. Fane has their own motivations, but mostly is hoping for Tyto to fail.

Fane plans, at first, to have the cave-dark soul, self-named as Null, destroy Nil, as they also believe it to be the way to restore Sar'Kai. However, Fane quickly becomes attached. Null, as it turns out, does not want anything to do with the Eternal Coil. They just want to enjoy the Mortal one. Fane, eventually, decides to act as Null's protector rather than guide, and the two evade the pursuit of Nil and Tyto.

Nil, however, is convinced that their life's purpose is to hunt down and kill Null. This is, after all, their true enemy, their fated adversary. This is what they were destined to do, and cannot accept that Null does not feel the same way.

Null and Fane are, eventually, accompanied by Roach, Sundog of Decay, and Nil and Tyto are joined by Panik, Sundog of Crowd Chaos.

Eventually, Fane cannot ward off the advances of the other two for any longer. They confront each other. Nil attacks Null.

Nil is killed, but not by Null or Fane or any of their companions, but by Panik. Panik was an old friend of Tyto, but disliked Nil profusely. The clash between the two groups was a perfect opportunity for Panik to change things to their liking, and Nil was drowned without any blood otherwise spilled.

Sar'Kai is restored, with a price.

As Null was still one of the halves, their soul was torn from their body along with Nil's and shuffled back into the Eternal Coil. Null's mortal shell was left empty, a petrified stone stature on the riverbank.

Fane, devastated, never left Null's side. Eventually, a temple was built around them- an ancient gargoyle and their immortal protector, an idol to be revered without true knowledge of what it once was. It's not like Fane would ever tell them the truth.

Years pass. Centuries pass. The temple is abandoned and found again, left to ruin and restored, cycles on cycles, and still Fane does not leave.

Fane, eventually, grows desperate. In an act of despair and hopelessness, he severs himself from the Eternal Coil entirely and uses his own power to try giving the empty shell of Null something, anything. To their horror, this reveals that Null was not empty at all- inanimate, but still sentient, trapped in a stone body with no way to move or communicate for all those horrid, lonely years.

The two reunite. Fane finds a way to enter Null's mind in a sort of pseudo-coil of their own creation, where Null lives a confined but no longer lonely life. They stay in the temple, together, until the Coil unravels.

[tiktaaliker]

ive been trying to develop the magic system for mortally coiled more lately and one thing ive been working on in particular is dragons

so in the world of mortally coiled, a dragon isnt really... a classic dragon. less big mythical lizard and more flavor of demigod? like a dragon CAN be a big mythical lizard but that's more of a coincidence than a defining feature

the big thing about mortally coiled dragons is that they're technically artificial in the sense that there's no such thing as a "natural" dragon. by definition they all started as something else and BECAME a dragon due to some sort of action or process. also its not the actual process itself that creates a dragon, since practically every dragon is made by completely different means. the big thing tying them together AS dragons are that they're all the result of unnatural, ignorant, or unwilling transitions from mortal to deity OR deity to mortal. its an incomplete process that leaves the dragon in a sort of limbo between the mortal state and the divine state.

as an example, take Khetzal, the firstborn. they were literally the first living thing to ever exist. just a huge weird bird-snake-lizard thing that was just kinda let loose into existence by resident bastard and god of creation, Hark. and khetzal, being barely sentient and more force of nature than anything else at the time, ate a sun, which is. literally concentrated divine energy from which all of existence is made. and mightve actually been a budding fourth god, it turns out. and khetzal ate it. destroying suns is pretty much the closest thing to a godly act a mortal can do so. khetzal ended up becoming the very first dragon. whoops?

and THEN there's someone like Gazer, who was coerced and manipulated by Rasputin (who is also technically a dragon lol) to the point where Gazer is convinced that there's no other option but to go through with Rasputin's plans. so gazer is killed pretty brutally in order to be revived as a deity using the blood of a killed deity. and in this case its definitely WAY more intentional than Khetzal becoming a dragon, but its still a really fucked up attempt to achieve the deity state. hence, instead of ACTUALLY becoming a god, Gazer is made into a dragon.

and THEN you can go the other way around, with a deity being forced into mortality becoming a dragon. specifically when Sar'Kai, god of destruction, is overthrown from the pantheon by Hark and Lythe (balance/luck), their mortal shell is technically a dragon, as are Null and Nil once the shell is split asunder.

so, generally, a dragon is mostly defined by the fact that it is neither mortal nor god; it's something that was once firmly in one category, but was forcefully placed into the other while still not completely losing their original ties. there's also varying degrees of being a dragon- like, Khetzal is the most dragon-like dragon, being pretty much an EXACT meeting of the deity state and the mortal state. meanwhile Rasputin leans more mortal and is only SLIGHLTY draconic, while Gazer actually leans a bit closer to the deity side. Sar'Kai's mortal shell is still pretty godly, but Null and Nil are a bit more mortal. id say that of the confirmed dragons, rasputin is probably the least draconic, followed by Sar'Kai, with Null/Nil and Gazer being much closer to being true dragons.