I NEED YOUR HELP TO SPREAD THIS

Wow reading elder scrolls lore has done no favours to my writing, I think I'm getting more incomprehensible each time I come up with lore or something substantial to post about.

I don't think I'm going to do fourth wall breaks or any absurd time travel shit unless I feel like it really benefits the lore and doesn't break the pre-established rules of the existence(or would not even be possible because of High Realm shenenigans)

If anyone needs a less absurd version of any specific post, please don't be afraid to ask on the posts or in my ask box.

Lore Post Masterlist

Note as of 10/14/24: The direction that I've wanted to take the project's lore and organization has changed and there's also been some major changes to specific pieces of lore. Essentially, everything in the Modern and Kingdom History sections are missing information. The biggest changes were to kingdom lore.

If you want updated information, shoot ask my active blog @ilisteria

Oversimplified Elvaria

Dust Era(before the Cycelian Empires): https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/701918504380661760/okay-so-may-as-well-start-with-a-very-bad

Classical History-

Age of the Cycelian Empires(before The Fall): https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/702579281401954304/oversimplified-elvaria-lore-part-2-classical

Age of Shadows(post-Fall, before modern kingdoms): https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/702769161697378304/oversimplified-elvaria-lore-part-2-classical

Creation Era(beginning of the modern kingdoms): https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/702773927220592640/oversimplified-elvaria-lore-part-2-classical

Modern History-

Warring Era- Minor Wars: https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/703233019527544832/not-oversimplified-elvaria-lore-part-3-modern

Warring Era- Ember War: https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/703951269062197248/not-oversimplified-elvaria-lore-part-3-modern

Era of Orders(current era): https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/703955151357165568/the-current-state-of-elvaria

Kingdom History-

A through F: https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/704024010136207360/oversimplified-elvaria-lore-part-4-kingdom

H through Z: https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/704560268013879296/oversimplified-elvaria-lore-part-4-kingdom

Universal Lore

Civalthax(Voiskana): https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/704568530086051840/universal-lore-part-1-the-high-realmsvoiskana

Anarexen(Altersae): https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/704772914731515904/universal-lore-part-1-the-high-realmsaltersae

Derizaren(Spaelcul): https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/704968067239886848/universal-lore-part-1-the-high-realmsspaelcul

Boriasonde(Tilemgie): https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/709767137490796544/universal-lore-part-1-the-high-realmstilemgie

Realms of Death(Realm of Endless White and Realm of Skybeasts): https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/709927201541423104/universal-lore-part-1-the-realms-of-deaththe

Mortal Realms(Lower Planes and Lesser Realms): https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/712277912575950848/universal-lore-part-3-the-mortal-realmsthe

Elemental Planes: https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/714264400696066048/universal-lore-part-4-the-elemental-planes

Other

Organizations on Elvaria: https://elvaria-project.tumblr.com/post/708409826648129536/organizations-on-elvaria

Geology of Natural Disasters and How to write them into your fictional universe.

So, you want to write about a natural disaster to advance your plot and torture your players/characters even more? Let me tell you how, accurately.

I feel like unless it is a volcano, natural disasters are a pretty slept on plot drivers, and some of them are really cool and unique! Today, I will talk to you about land slides, earthquakes (And earthquake related disasters), and volcanoes.

Landslides: Probably one I see the least in stories, but one that would be incredibly interesting to write into a plot where they believe in curses. Landslides can happen along ocean bluffs, slightly hilly areas, and highly mountainous areas, this means it is something that can happen in most landscapes. But what can trigger a landslide? Mostly all you need to trigger a landslide could be just abnormally large amounts of rain, excessive deforestation (with a little bit of rain), or an earthquake. If you don't want to use deforestation or an earthquake as a catalyst, a really cool indicator that the land is slipping and may be prone to a collapse is J hooked trees.

This indicates that there is soil creeping slowly over time, and it may lead to a major landslide.

2. Earthquakes: Probably one of the easiest things to write, earthquakes can happen anywhere, but they are most common in places that are tectonically active areas. There are about three types of environments you can expect earthquakes to be common. The first is just rugged mountains, if your landscape looks like this, you should write in earthquakes. Associated hazards could be landslides, avalanches, and large falling rocks.

The next landscape could be a thin mountain range, next to the ocean, very scenic, but very dangerous. Essentially, I am describing a subduction zone environment.

Earthquakes in these areas could equal a couple different associated disasters. Scenario one: A very large earthquake happens, and the ocean begins to recede. This is a tsunami, enough said. If you are writing a tsunami though, please, please, do not write it as a large wave, thank you. Also, a common way people are hurt by tsunami's are from them going into the ocean because they don't understand a tsunami is going to happen.

Scenario two: A large earthquake happens, your characters are in a valley and suddenly the ground begins to liquify as the ground shakes, once the shaking stops, the ground becomes solid like nothing ever happened, except everything has suddenly sunk into the now hard ground. This is called liquefaction and it typically happens in areas that have loose dirt or lots of saturated soil.

Scenario three: There are a lot of small earthquakes, they do not cause a lot of damage, but you begin to notice that one of the isolated mountains has a plume rising. Earthquakes can indicate lava moving underground and the filling of magma chambers.

The next environment that can host lots of earthquakes would be regions that have a lot of really deep valleys and small mountain ranges (not cone volcanoes), but overall seems pretty flat.

This indicates a transform fault like the San Andreas. If you want to hint at there being earthquakes in the area, you can show fence posts that are suddenly several feet out of line at a dilapidated farm or something similar.

(These earthquakes are different because they are cased from sideways movement, not an up-and-down movement this hint can only be used for this environment). Volcanoes would not be found here, but liquefaction and landslides could still occur here.

4. Volcanoes: If you thought earthquakes had a lot of information, volcanoes do too. First you have to ask yourself, what kind of volcano you want to have, what kind of eruption style? So lets break down the kind of eruptions you can have and what their landscapes look like. Hawaiian Shield volcano: This will produce a smooth fast lava, the landscape typically is pretty flat, but there will be small cones and the rocks can have a ropey or jagged texture and the rocks will be almost exclusively black to dark red.

Stratovolcanoes: These will be solitary mountains, typically, that look like perfect cones (Picture shown in earthquake section). These will have large ash cloud eruptions and pyroclastic flows, they may have some lava, but typically most damage is done from the pyroclastic flows (think Pompeii). Some hints of these, other than describing the cone features (which can be hidden by other mountains), would be to talk about petrified wood! Trees can get fossilized in the ash and I imagine it would be very strange to find this rock that clearly looks to be a piece of wood, but its a rock. Subcategory- Calderas: Used to be a large stratovolcano, but they erupt so explosively that the entire cone collapses and creates a basin.

There are a lot of kinds of volcanoes out there, so forgive me for just putting an infographic and then talking to you about these really rare types of eruptions that I feel like people should know about.

Okay lets talk about blue lava (kind of) and black lava

You will notice the lava is still red in the middle of this image, during the day these would look like a normal eruption, but at night the burning sulfur would make it appear blue. Some cool features other than this, would be that any water in the area would become very acidic and burn the skin due to sulfuric acid. This would again be really cool if you are trying to describe a 'cursed' land.

Black lava: This happens only in the east African rift I believe, but it is a carbonatite lava, but if you are writing in a rift valley (where the continent is tearing apart to form a new ocean) this might be a cool feature. The lava will cool white and will quickly erode, it makes for a very alien landscape!

Anyway as always, this is supposed to be an introductive guide for the basics of writing geology to create cool landscapes/features into dnd or fictional universes, if you are a geologist please understand my oversimplification of tectonics, I didn't want people to run away.

i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.

there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.

anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.

A Better World - create an alternate history timeline

Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game

Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet

Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games

Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones

Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy

ZenGM - simulate sports

Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi

IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)

Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface

The Cafe & Diner - mystery game

The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game

Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions

Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game

Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game

Miniconomy - player driven economy game

Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes

BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators

Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil

Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.

if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.

Not Oversimplified Elvaria Lore- Part 3, Modern History, coming at some point

This shit is being split in half(actually half this time not into 3 parts) Technically it's two eras, being the Warring Era and Era of the Orders, but EO is where the world is currently so I won't be counting anything about it under lore. The Warring Era was a period of time that has a fair amount of detail, but is pretty distinctly split into the Minor Wars and Ember War, so they're getting separate posts. I'll probably create a post with some notes for the history of individual kingdoms where it's notable, titled something like 'Part 4, Kingdom History'(working title). Maybe will do external universal lore at some point that'll be labeled Universal Lore and have 4 parts in a more storytelling style, but only one is actually complete and survived the minor revisions of a few months ago. The other three parts don't exist yet lmao, I have to compile and create new info for them because I don't usually think too much about the Eternaveilans. Realm lore outside of the Eternaveilans is a big fat maybe leaning on the unlikely side because there's not much to them, and even I have no idea what to write for two of the realms because they're mostly irrelevant and kinda just exist as gaps in the universe order.

Anyone begging you seriously please comment, the only things I have on hand are tales(not even a large amount of them), old info I may or may not have to edit(and even then content to recycle isn't a lot, it's maybe two or three posts), and artifact lore which never got anywhere when I started thinking about it four years ago

So now that the high realms are done we're going downwards in this order:

Part 2: The Realms of Death- Realm of Endless White + Realm of Skybeasts Part 3: The Mortal Realms- Lower Planes + Lesser Realms

Part 4: The Elemental Planes- Realms of fire, air, stellar, and earth(all in one go) Some of these will be more lore heavy, some will just be explanations of how they work. These are also paired by if one is necessary to explain the other or if there's just not enough info to justify making a whole separate post.

Also yes I'm going to be posting throughout this week now that I'm finally able to fuck around(temporarily). Just not daily posts because I'll probably go crazy or hit writer's block again if I do that.

Big question though: What would you all like to see when the focus goes back to Elvaria as I finish up the universe building?

Not Oversimplified Elvaria Lore- Part 3, Modern History(Warring Era- The Ember War)

Peace was never meant to be forever, and dissatisfaction kept the wounds of the minor wars from healing Flaerna still felt that they were given an unfair amount of land and renewed pushes into Walekrina and Floernian territory, but their efforts in Walekria were significantly held back by the mountain borders King Taknychko of Flaerna is assassinated, with his son Leonnox taking the throne and continuing the war effort Floernia was not so fortunate, and their border forest would be burned away as Flaerna advanced Flaerna's Scorching Council would plan a full scale invasion in secret over the span of a month, planning on enacting it within the first day of the coming month

Zodiana would choose to not get involved so long as their borders weren't intruded upon

A few days before the planned invasion date, King Anodir Zhonal of Zodiana was assassinated, and Zodiana, Floernia, and Walekria would pin the blame on Flaerna Flaerna, in anger, scrapped their invasion plan and declared war on the three kingdoms as they knew they could not prove their innocence to the other kingdoms Föllen Alatsa would not publicly declare their opinion and remain neutral to not be involved in a continent spanning war, and neither would Dalirna Walekria, Floernia, and Zodiana would join up into a military alliance and Walekria and Zodiana would send troops to occupy the Floernian borders to buy time for Floernia to build up troops More kings and queens are assassinated within the span of 5 months, with the list being- King Kolthremor Kelthrom of Åskorhal(leaving it under Queen Vethørigya) Thedeos Helithian of the Heartwood Province of Floernia Atathaeia Eurydine Diravacata of the Pinewood Province of Floernia Oranios Zilizane of the Oakwood Province of Floernia Lithinos Agistechea of the Grasslands Province of Floernia

Queen Verinae Galoris of Zodiana(leaving the throne to newly crowned Salgirtus Tulsier Zhonal)

Empress Zhi'mei Hai-yang of Walekria(leaving it under Emperor Yu'guan Qing-Shi) King Leonnox would attempt to reason with the other kingdoms that there was no feasible way for Flaerna to have assassinated so many leaders in under 5 months, but none of the kingdoms participating in the war believed him Walekrian and Zodianan occupation on the Floernia-Flaerna border ends after 6 months to focus on pushing into Flaernan territory, Floernia has enough troops to start a pushback against Flaerna and reclaim lost land Flaerna being surrounded on three sides with enemies and Föllen Alatsa maintaining neutrality, would seek Dalirna to aid them, guaranteeing protection of Dalirna's land should Zodiana launch an invasion on their shared border, and also assuring that all responsibility of Dalirnan losses would fall onto the hands of the Flaernans Dalirna would accept and believed in the innocence of Flaerna regarding the assassinations After the 2,000th year of war, Flaernans were weakened and a third of the army withdrew and defected, with some surrendering to the enemy kingdoms by offering information for their lives and lodging, and some fleeing to the surface of Föllen Alatsa to hide out The remaining forces would be pressured to continue fighting despite casualties reaching into the hundred thousands on all sides The new King Salgirtus of Zodiana feared that if the war did not end soon, the kingdoms would collapse, and so he travelled to Yūregina in secret, coming across a being(no not a demon I don't have those in Elvaria) along the Violet Rift Islands that offered him the power to end a war in exchange for his remaining lifespan and soul He would agree in desperation, gaining a strange mockery of a crown that sprouted from his head in a ring of bony tendrils and bony wings that could not fly but acted as blades These would mark his pact with the being, and he would return to Elorinar to continue the war, using illusion magic to hide the crown and wings While Floernia, Dalirna, and Flaerna failed to notice his absence, Walekria was more perceptive and viewed it as him doubting his own skill due to his youth, and would thus withdraw from the war, believing he was too young and inexperienced to lead the war and rule his kingdom He would lead the Zodianan and Floernian troops on frontlines and aim for the heart of Flaerna, assigning a separate front to force Dalirna to withdraw from the war from their own heavy casualties, would be successful He would make three more demands to end the war over the years but all three failed, leading to Salgirtus leaving behind forces at towns surrounding Embylviska and journeying alone to sacrifice himself to end the war He would call upon the power of the pact and unleashed a storm of caustic ash and bony blades that caused mass casualties among the Flaernans but avoided the other kingdoms, but the pitch black clouds tinged with red thunder spanned the whole of Elorinar This view would mark the end of this war that would come to be known as the Ember War, with Leonnox surrendering when he came to terms with the futility of the war This war would last for 2,500 years in total, leaving a great many dead or injured and many more living in the shadow of the legacy this war would leave behind -----------------------------------

So besides the war shit is the notes section which is here Yukiosa was discovered around the start of the war via Zodianan expeditions north, but they refused to join the war

Lustarise was discovered by a Föllen Alatsan right around the time Leonnox attempted to convince the other kingdom rulers that Flaerna didn't do the assassinations, but Lustarise didn't want to be known by the rest of the world and forced the Föllen Alatsan into a vow of silence When Floernia was building up troops, Nyaelis was established as a sub-kingdom by the Nynphor, where they offered troops in exchange for some sovereignty Speaking of Lustarise and Föllen Alatsa shit, Lustarise went through a whole ass war of their own during the Minor Wars era, called the War of Shattered Ruby where the Geintori half elves fought to gain some sort of sovereignty of their own. Even up to the Ember War, Lustarise and Geintora(new sub-kingdom) were dealing with how they'd officially divide the caves and allot resources for rebuilding and general living Föllen Alatsa had the Maeliron half elves create their own sub-kingdom called Maeliros Oh yeah and the Minor Wars also had some shit happening in the same time over in Yinorael, as a strange plague was inflicted upon the Yūregians that slowly twisted their forms over time to become monstrous, thus trade between them and the Hikarinians was halted with the Hikarinans fearing the spread of the strange disease to themselves Also with the end of the Ember War, missives from Åskorhal and Jivankova are sent to ask wtf happened, since the storm over Elorinar also covered the Gyvorkal Mountains and was visible from Kavathanar, so yeah they're "discovered" To previous lore post with the other links in it-

Universal Lore- Part 1, The High Realms(Spaelcul- Derizaren)

"I do not hide knowledge from my people, the Spaelculans, as there is not much to hide and not much very relevant to the duties we preform in maintaining this existence. "You may think of us as weavers or artisans, if that makes it simpler to understand what we are and what we do. All the fabric and tarps that mortals use for their clothing or tents come from the work of weavers, and the work of artisans give others the ability to build complex structures with the processed goods.

"In the same way societies and civilizations are built on the backs of craftsmen, the elaborate 'tapestry' all celestial bodies rest upon is created by us. This tapestry is very durable, but the fine threads it is built with are still fine threads even when woven together.

"When these threads begin to snap from the "weight" things in existence upon the location possess, it creates gaps that you may know as black holes. These are not created from the natural processes of stars, so they are not true black holes, but rather better described as spatial rifts. They function about the same as black holes, so there is no need to keep that distinction in mind, as you are not one of my people that have the ability to fix such rifts.

"Why I am telling you this?

"To put it simply, we, or rather I, did not always need my own people to aid me in the repairs of spatial rifts. In the many, many past Cycles, I was able to very easily manage the opening and subsequent sealing of the rifts myself. They occurred in very predictable locations and were few and far between that I could anticipate the rifts before they happened. The few that formed in an unexpected location were manageable as well.

"But in this Cycle, for some strange reason, these rifts form in completely absurd locations that I'd never have been able to predict. Locations where across the whole of existence, there is nothing that can feasibly pierce through the plane so violently and suddenly and in multiple locations at once- and I have witnessed the birth and end of an innumerable amount of universes.

"In the first 4 or so billion years of this Cycle, it was random but I could still handle it on my own, though it stretched my presence thin in the later end of that period. I refer to this as the Heralding Eon, a time where it was unusual but it was not a concern to me yet, but I now know it was a warning of more tumultuous times ahead. "By the next 5 billion years, repairing the rifts no longer was a task I could handle alone, and so I looked towards my kin Avaas' creations as inspiration, creating the Spaelculans by imparting traces of my essence into spatial energies.

"Them forming into a reflection of my image was entirely incidental, but my form is best suited to this task, so it was most efficient for them to have the same limb arrangements. After all, you do not see fish or birds weaving the webs of a spider- but to return to the story of why I am in my current predicament and why Derizaren exists...

"My people are not perfect copies of what I am. They were never meant to be, as their duty is to simply weave the threads of space and repair them in the locations where rifts form. They are also to monitor designated spaces that I cannot keep in my peripherals. But of course, the Lower Planes are unable to see the threads that make up the metaphorical tapestry- not the inhabitants being unable to, but that the threads are entirely unviewable in the Lower Planes to anything that is not me.

"They may hold the Lower Planes, but they are in a sort of phase state for the lack of a better term. The threads are formed by spatial energy which is automatically in the phase state, making them only visible through a sort of "screen".

"The realm of Derizaren was only partially made to shelter my people. Its proper purpose is to act as a "screen" that allows my people to directly view each of those strings, and the power I have imparted to my people allows them to perform their duties from there. Very rarely do they ever need to have a physical presence in the Lower Planes, and that is usually either when an Altersaean requires aid or some race that cannot be sheltered in Anarexen has to be sheltered here.

"But we do not shelter any race. We cannot afford to be philanthropists and preservers to beings, only the fabric of space itself. If a race does not contribute in any way to the progression or maintenance of this existence or cannot so much as grasp the information carried by the threads, we do not take them. If they can grasp the flow of information carried by spatial energies, I choose to impart some of my power to them so they become a pseudo-Spaelculan and can contribute to our work. This can, of course, be revoked at any time.

"As to those of the former group, the best and more relevant example would be survivors of the Tearing of Boriasonde. Tilisnet has essentially vanished from this existence somehow, and whatever realm I or Avaas could create is not suitable to the aspect of time that the Tilemgians are, so the most we can do is grant the ones we could find among the Lower Planes and give them sanctuaries in our realm that they may shape to be more habitable to them. But this is not a perfect system, and many more Tilemgians are scattered throughout existence.

"Avaas believes that I should pay some more care towards the Tilemgians, as they are essentially the successors of Tilisnet until he reappears some day. I will admit that without them, time would not be flowing right now and the whole of existence would be stuck in a time loop, indefinitely frozen in time, or collapsing onto itself as the absence of time means the concept of progression and regression disappears, but there is nothing I can do.

"My domain is space, not time, and I and my people are spread thin enough already in this eon I have named the Turbulence Eon. Since the disappearance of Tilisnet, more of the threads of space are breaking and some have even disappeared- I cannot monitor both the Tilemgians and Spaelculans, and Avaas does not tell me anything. What little I know is what my people know as we are spread very thin trying to quite literally be everywhere at once. "Avaas is growing paranoid and irrational, and he does not let me know of anything. From what I can tell by his behaviour, he knows something very critical to the current events, but he doesn't believe it himself and hasn't spoken a word to his people.

"I can respect him as kin, but when this involves one of us disappearing, which has never happened before, I and my people reaching our limits of what we can do to prevent the total collapse of this existence, an entire High Realm collapsing and the survivors being scattered throughout existence, and the Altersaeans not knowing what is going on themselves and following orders blindly- that is where I draw the line. "This is not preservation, this is madness, and this is why I cannot do more. Derizaren and the Spaelculans exist to maintain the fabric of space, nothing more and nothing less, and the fact that I even had to create either is enough to show the state of the Cycle's order right now.

"If this existence continues to last even a billion years more, I would be very surprised and frankly the odds are very close to being zero. There used to be one of us that could likely be able to fix this problem, but I have not seen him since this Cycle was started. He may have disappeared like Tilisnet did, but I would not be able to sense him as he is the embodiment of nothingness, and nothingness does not leave a trace.

"Avaas turns away when I mention the name of the Fourth. This is how I learned for certain that he has been hiding things from me, but as to what, I will never know unless he confesses.

"Forgive me for a tirade unbefitting for a being such as I, for my frustration runs deep-

"But his silence will be our doom- there is no other way to phrase this."

--------------------

Taglist for writing-

@aneci

If anyone else would like to join the taglist, feel free to DM me or send in an ask! I will also have a separate taglist for art posts.

please vote if you haven't before 🙏

Poll for the Universal and Realm lore

I don't want to jump straight into it if there's no need for it besides basic details, so I'm using strawpoll for this Also shameless discord server plug https://discord.com/invite/t4ch8K63xP

StrawPoll

Universal and Realm lore - Online Poll - StrawPoll.com

What's your opinion? Vote now: Yes, Universal lore only, Yes, Realm lore only, Yes, both universal and realm lore, No to both...

Maps of current day Elvaria, made on Inkarnate.