#maressea

[asheepinthenight]

Hi Dani! I love Talon's End so much! I love the writing and Hawk and Shea and the Siblings and Isla and Erich and not so much mom, but I still love her and it's amazing.

Question: How would you describe the usual human clothing of the region? I'm trying to draw my MC (helps with getting to know the character) and I'm not sure of what clothing she'd wear.

Thank you and take care! <3

That's a super good question! I got a little carried away, but hopefully this is at least kind of helpful!

TL;DR: Women mostly wear dresses; men mostly wear trousers. Regardless of gender, clothes tend to be light and loose in style without a lot of ornamentation. Currently though, elegant, ornamental hairstyles are in, and many people are growing their hair out to take advantage of that. Hair length isn't particularly culturally dictated or gendered. Clothing colors usually reflect the seasons' colors in nature, but only members of high society (like MC's family) are really expected to have whole ensembles of the "proper" colors. For those curious, robes aren't at all common due to their association with mages.

Details under the cut!

The area where MC and their family live is relatively diverse, so fashion there has been influenced by a variety of different cultures. Maressea is on the warmer side of temperate with a fair amount of precipitation, so during warm weather, clothes tend to be light and not have too many layers--but coats, jackets, and capes to ward off the rain are common. Even when it's warm, sleeves, trousers, and skirts are usually long, but they tend to be more loose and flowing. During the winter, heavier fabrics are a must, but the styles are relatively similar to warm-weather clothes. Colors are an important part of styling, though. The colors of an ensemble should generally match the colors seen in nature during a given season. This is obviously pretty expensive and, therefore, a thing people will be judged by if they're considered a member of Society. But in situations where no one could reasonably afford multiple dyed garments for every season, people still often use seasonal colors for ribbons, handkerchiefs, and other small items. Even among the nobility, garment patterns and shapes are often relatively simple since the mundane aspects of fabric arts were only revived in the last century. Those who had the knowledge to revive things like lace-making and detailed embroidery are highly sought after, and their services quite expensive.

Hats aren't a big thing--unless they're necessitated by weather--since elegant, complex hairstyles are having a moment (the vibe but not necessarily form of fancy wedding updos). Historically, there hasn't been a major tendency toward long or short hair, regardless of gender, but long hair is stylish due to greater options for the aforementioned elegant hairstyles. (Not quite Hawk-length, though!) Hair accessories like ribbons, combs, and gemstones are common based on what a person has available to them.

Women are usually expected to wear dresses, and men are expected to wear trousers. But some avant garde women (including Sabine) have started wearing trousers at informal events (and formal events, if they're feeling extremely spicy). Some men have begun wearing dresses as well, but it hasn't taken off as much just yet. Robes are sometimes worn, but it's very rare since they're associated with being the garb of mages--not the most popular thing these days. So Hawk's gift had the double sin of being a robe AND not being a seasonally appropriate color.

[lancelought]

#swordtember day 25 - Translucent, day 26 - Stone & day 27 - Cosmic.  In 1168 DR, a ball of fire struck the royal palace of Maressea, destroying part of the servants' wing but miraculously killing nobody. A blade was forged from the stone found in the crater.

[asheepinthenight]

Hello Dani! Do they celebrate Christmas? or well something close it? I can see mc missing their family and the party.

The MC's family does celebrate a gift-giving holiday called Hearthblaze during the winter! It's a week-long celebration, and the tradition is to give one gift to one person each day. The gifts don't have to be physical items (they can be promises, favors, etc.), and a lot of people give more than one per day (especially in large families!). But they usually pick one "official" gift for each day and save their biggest, most important gift to give on the last day of Hearthblaze during a big family feast. Growing up, the MC got quite a few of those big feast-day gifts from their siblings since it's an affectionately antagonistic point of pride for both Soren and Sabine that they avoided ever giving their biggest gifts to each other.

Hearthblaze won't be in this next demo update, but it is something that will happen during the story. Depending on your choices, they may not have to miss the party after all!

[asheepinthenight]

Hello Dani! Can I ask a question if you don't mind? I was wondering if there's special festival/holidays in Maressea? Thanks you!

Yes, there are! There are some areas that have smaller regional holidays, but the four celebrated throughout Maressea happen around the first full moon of each season. Depending on the community a person lives in, festivities may last anywhere from one day to a full week.

A rundown of the major holidays is under the cut!

The Maressean New Year celebration takes place at the start of spring. Traditionally, the New Year is celebrated by visiting neighbors and family and offering to share what one has if they have need of it following a harsh winter. This tradition came about following the Cataclysm when Maressea's climate suddenly grew much colder. Most people had a difficult time getting through the first few harsh winters that followed, so when the weather started to warm up at the beginning of spring, those who still had supplies would clear the roads and travel to bring those supplies to people who needed them. Maresseans are very used to their climate 3000 years later, though, so the visits and other events (like the ball MC's family hosts) are usually more social than anything else. But when there's been a particularly difficult winter, people do still use it as a time to check on their friends and family and share what they have.

The summer festival (sometimes called Green Fields) is more or less an excuse for a big communal cookout. It's a celebration of the warmer months returning and crops (hopefully) growing well. In modern Maressea, it's probably the most free-form holiday with some people (especially in rural areas) going all-out with a giant potluck barbeque and others just inviting a few family members for dinner.

The autumn festival has probably the biggest image difference between rural and urban areas. In places like Cheldwick, it's a time to relax amid the busy harvest season either resting at home or at community events like Cheldwick's. In the city, it's taken on a few more spooky connotations like real-world Halloween. Autumn was traditionally a time when people would harvest not only crops but the benefits of magical blessings cast early in the year. So when magic became taboo, some people came to see it as a time when curses and other dark spells could take hold. Since magic was never vilified as much in rural areas as in urban ones, the spooky vibes never really reached far outside of cities.

I talked a little about the winter festival, Hearthblaze, here.

[asheepinthenight]

Hiiii :)Sorry to bother you but can I ask a question? It's a stupid ask, so... If you don't want to answer, no worries! About the wedding dress of my MC, this, is written:"The only acceptable part of the day is your dress. The color is seasonally appropriate—pale yellow, as is proper for a summer wedding"So... What about... The others seasons colors? Why some colors would be inappropriate? Are the seasons playing a big role in your IF?Thank you and have a nice day!

Not a bother at all--those are good questions! I mentioned it a bit here, but the seasons are an important element of what's fashionable to wear in the kingdom where MC lives. The colors for wedding clothes are even more specific: pink dress/green suit for spring, yellow dress/red suit for summer, orange dress/brown suit for autumn, and blue dress/white suit for winter. It's a cultural convention on what's "proper" and a part of aligning the union to the natural world. Some people do wear other colors anyway, but there are superstitions that doing so will weaken the union. So Hawk not wearing the "correct" color would be seen as a bad omen.

As far as the larger role the seasons play in the story, they will come up a decent amount! The story starts in late summer and ends in spring, and there are some big seasonal events in autumn and winter, too!

[asheepinthenight]

Talon’s End Devlog: March 2024

Boy howdy, what a month... My couple weeks off turned into about a full month off due to family medical issues and other chaos (everyone seems to mostly be on the mend now!). But I'm finally back to writing! The last few months have thrown off the release schedule I was hoping for, but I'm hoping to have the next content update out late spring or early summer. No previews yet--hopefully next month!

Since there was no monthly extra for March, I pulled a short excerpt from the scrapped version of Shea's Valentine story that tells a couple abbreviated versions of a Maressean folk tale about a Mermaid and a fisherwoman:

You exit the exhibit into a long hall of statuary from three centuries ago when Maressea was under imperial rule. Each piece was rendered in a similarly realistic style by a variety of different sculptors, but running down the center of the hall is a sequence of statues by a single artist that depict the fairy tale of The Mermaid and the Fisherwoman.

In the commonly told version of the story, a fisherwoman goes many days without catching a single fish, and when her tears drop into the sea, a mermaid finds her and offers to bring her all the fish she can fit in her boat in exchange for stories of life on land. Their deal goes on well for some time, but as her prosperity grows, the fisherwoman becomes greedy. One day, she catches the mermaid in her net and refuses to release her until the mermaid brings her all the fish in the sea. The mermaid promises to deliver the fish to the fisherwoman if only she will release her so she can get the help of her father, the king of the sea, to do so. The next day, the fisherwoman's village is washed away by a huge wave propelled by the strength of all the fish in the sea.

But the sculptor appears to have had a very different interpretation of the story. Instead of bringing the fisherwoman only fish, the mermaid--who fell in love at first sight--brings her gifts from the bottom of the sea to woo her. The final statue--according to the plaque that accompanies it--depicts the fisherwoman asking not for all the fish in the sea, nor for more gifts, but for the mermaid's hand in marriage. Judging by the intimate--and artistically nude--embrace in which the statue's figures are engaged, you can only assume the mermaid was glad to give it.

When the only other people in the hall make their exit, Shea leans toward you. "I think I like this version of the story better. No one has a happy ending in the original, but in this one, the village is safe, and the fisherwoman and the mermaid find love. Or maybe this is the original, and the story changed when society did."

[asheepinthenight]

Hi Dani! I see a lot of ask about, like the Winds, the seasons ext.. And I was wondering. Why your story has such a strong link with nature in general? People who worship the Winds, aristocrats wearing seasonal colored clothing, even Hawk and their storm "entrance". The nature is like, always present, even in a subtle way. Why this choice?

If you're asking about the meta reason, I grew up in an area that has four seasons and is somewhat prone to extreme weather (blizzards, heat waves, tornadoes, etc.), so I've always found natural cycles and the power of nature interesting. There's something both terrifying and comforting about how small humanity is compared to the natural world.

For the in-universe reason (since not every part of the setting places the same importance on nature), the culture MC grew up in has a strong historical connection to nature by necessity, so it affects many aspects of their life. Maressea relies heavily on agriculture and has historically tried to keep their magic (when they still used it) in some degree of harmony with nature. The weather patterns in the region were permanently altered by the magical cataclysm that occurred around 3000 years ago, and many people came to believe that ensuring their lives and magic aligned with nature was the best way to avert future disasters. So although Maressea has changed a great deal since that time, many of their modern traditions have roots in much older beliefs.

[lancelought]

#swordtember day 11 - Dwarven & day 12 - Elven. An orichalcum shortsword in the dwarven style, but distinctly elven craftsmanship and design. Swords like these were first made in the kingdom of Maressea, which started as an alliance between an Elven famiily and Dwarven house.