Original World Request Meme: Spirit Bloods

[beckyh2112]

I need to write more original fiction and expanding worlds beyond their starting idea is one of the hardest things for me. In an effort to get things moving since another project has stalled until I do more research, I'm throwing this open.

Another secondary-fantasy world. There are eight great spirit-bloodlines that run through the peoples of the world: dragon and phoenix, wolf and snake, badger and unicorn, and bison and crane. They produce near-humans with limited magical powers and animal traits. The spirit blood also tends to emphasize a particular negative personality trait. Spirit-bloods breed true with humans but they don't breed very much. They're definitely a minority population, rare to uncommon depending on the area but not unheard of.

The dragons and phoenixes are uniquely linked in that a phoenix is always a second child of a dragon. Not all dragons have phoenixes as second children, but the ones who do will not produce any more children after the phoenix. Explicitly, the phoenix-child sterilizes its dragon-parent by using all of the other potential lives as its own.

Phoenixes and dragons possess wings - feathered and scaled, respectively. Dragons breathe fire and have invulnerable wings. Phoenixes live until they die of old age. Nothing else can kill them - they'll self-resurrect from death wounds and never get sick. Dragons are known to be extremely selfish, phoenixes to be extremely cruel.

Wolves posses wolf ears and wolf tail. Their teeth are much sharper than normal for humans but generally tend to fit standard human orthodontics - they've got molars and such rather than a mouthful of wolf teeth. They possess enhanced senses. Wolves are known to be extremely tempermental.

Snakes are scaled all over. They are immune to poison and drowning, and they are poisonous themselves. Snakes are known to be very cold and few attachments to anyone besides their children.

Unicorns are actually shadhavars. They possess a single, small, eland-like horn in the middle of their foreheads. It is hollow and produces enticing music when the wind blows over it. They are extremely good-looking people, sometimes almost unnaturally so. Almost all unicorns are fuck-nuts.

Cranes have long fingers and feathers instead of hair. They age extremely slowly and living to be two hundred years old is not inconceivable for them. Cranes are known to be lazy. Paradoxically, they are also known to be schemers with little regard for the people immediately affected by their schemes.

Haven't figured out the other two yet.

One of the various kings is a dragon-king. His second son is a phoenix, and he has discovered a way to use his son's feathers to extend his own life. This, as one might imagine, is extremely painful and degrading for the son. He flees when it becomes too much, washing up on shore and finding himself with a local wolf-blood named Chatan.

Father, of course, does not want his immortality to go wandering off like that and wants his boy back.

About five or six generations ago, one of the badger-kings set about exterminating the dragons so there are very few dragons and only the one phoenix in the world. Unicorn blood is uncommon - they tend to breed even less than normal for spirit-blooded folk.

I note a lot of people don't have names now. Names will be acquired over the course of writing and with much agonizing. What flavor this world is will probably shift as I write - this post is mostly to get me doing something with this world, which means it's going to be in flux and heavily influenced by whatever I'm reading.

Ask as many things as you want. I don't guarantee anything with this, but I'll try to scribble a fair amount of stuff.

Comments

[avocado-love.livejournal.com]

I like this world. It hits all of my buttons. Also, I'm interested in how this original-meme progresses. I might do one myself. XD

Well my first question is what is what's going on with the general populous? Are most of the people spirit blooded? If so, what's the majority animal?

Tell me more about these Unicorn-folk. They don't have high fertility rates (or they breed less. Whatever), so is it a big deal when one is born? Are they really into keeping their few bloodlines pure, or are there a lot of people with Unicorn Blood running around?

So Phoenix-boy washes up on on the shore with local Wolf-blood. Tell me about that? Is it hate on first sight? Can Phoenix-boy randomly set himself/other things on fi-yah?!

Not a fill

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

This prompted me to do the research I'd been meaning to do about what type of unicorn traditions I'm going to draw from. So they're in the post now. ^_^

[spyridona.livejournal.com]

Tell me about the culture of the people associated with wolf bloods and unicorn bloods? Fuck nuts people building civilizations can be.. interesting.

What does the elder brother think of the Nix brother? What does the mother think of what's going on if she's aware of it?

*ponders, then just picks first things that come to mind*

[suzukiblu.livejournal.com]

Give me some tasty backstory! <3 What is/was wolf-blood's family like?

A unicorn who isn't fuck-nuts.

Bison vs. Crane

So how exactly does one extend one's life with phoenix feathers?

A unicorn who isn't fuck-nuts

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

The man who invented the solid tubes of lip-color was a god, Nava bint'Changeez thought. She rubbed the jasmine-scented substance over her lips, then delicately pressed a her mouth to the bottom of her letter.

Quickly, she sealed it with wax and pressed her seal into it. The unicorn with the virgin, the traditional seal used by a woman of unicorn blood. Because they couldn't control themselves, of course. Because virgins were their prizes, and only harlots could raise a unicorn to adulthood.

It was a silly story, in her opinion, and vexingly difficult to discover its falsity. She had been given to a courtesan as a babe, and she knew of three other unicorn-girls in the city who also were raised by harlots.

There were no unicorn-boys in the city, of course, because no one was mad enough to try to raise one of them. There were no wolves in this country, nor any bison.

And everyone knew unicorns wouldn't raise their own spawn.

She addressed the letter quickly, then studied it. Mama always said this kind of sloppiness made her look eager, but she was eager. And eager enough to want al'Sanjar to know it.

Re: A unicorn who isn't fuck-nuts

[suzukiblu.livejournal.com]

I so like her. <3 And am even more curious about the species, now! Also, why apparently only a wolf or bison would raise a unicorn boy.

DEAR WOLF-BLOOD WOULD YOU LIKE ADOPTED SON? :D

Re: A unicorn who isn't fuck-nuts

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

I am sure dragons and badgers would raise unicorn-boys, too, but they don't have many of those around where Nava lives. Cranes and snakes ain't going to get involved in that, kthx.

(Unicorns probably also raise other unicorns. Just not where Nava has ever heard of it.)

[dark-puck.livejournal.com]

- Seems to me Snakes might make good assassins. Does anyone take advantage of this, or do the snakes get tetchy when people try?

- Who -- or what -- stopped the Badger-king when he went exterminating?

- What do the non-spiritblood folk think about all this?

Bonus: Beads and Spice

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

"The emperor will gift you with baskets heaped high with beads and spice," the lady hisses. "All you need do is bring his son home."

Chatan's ears go flat. "No."

Re: Bonus: Beads and Spice

[dark-puck.livejournal.com]

Oh my. Hopefully the lady understands flat ears.

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

Seconding the watching-how-this-goes-may-try-it-someday.

So do these bloodlines tend to become/be assumed to be nobility or royalty? Or do they sort of set the tone of their individual cultures, if they aren't all subsets of a general humanoid culture?

Why'd the badger-king set about killing off the dragons?

Who tends to feature as heroes in legend and myth? Who as villains?

Who tends to feature as heroes in legend and myth?

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

In stories, the Bison Lord tamed the Bone Blight. He brought life back to the land and drove the monsters to the ends of the world.

***

In the city of Shan Lin, mighty Changeez drops into idiom and conversation. The unicorn warlord bestrode the world a hundred years ago, and his touch is everywhere.

***

Arrod the Skilled walks beside every youth of the Hrun'tzi tribes, reminding them that one does not need the magics of animal blood to make one great.

***

Tilek grins through jokes and foolery, feathers bright and laziness assured. He steals fire to warm him in winter, he is thrown into the briar patch by the marauding wolf-blood.

***

Daoud stands against the dragon-lords, against the wolf-lords, against the ravaging unicorns. Two white stripes run through his black hair, and two white ribbons decorate the haft of his black-iron mace.

***

The odd-eyed twins, their names lost to history, dance and grin and chase. They are hunters and soldiers, they are the first wolves, the builders of the greatest city in the world. The empire of their descendants once covered the world.

Their empire is ruins, but their city on the seven hills is still remembered.

***

Blue-Fire Jaraka strives through every city, through every nation.

Re: Who tends to feature as heroes in legend and myth?

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

This is nifty. I particularly like the image of the badger-lord and his stripes, and the Romulus/Remus thing fits nicely- animal theme doesn't necessarily mean uncivilized or feral.

Who tends to feature as villains in legend and myth?

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

In red stone Tarjan, the name Changeez is remembered with a shudder. People still point to the blighted field outside the walls and say, 'That is where the pyramid of heads was built.'

***

No knight's mace, no assassin's blade can pierce the wings of the tyrant Jayin. Baskets of gold and silver are heaped high with jade and turquoise beads, and myrrh burns like the cheapest incense.

Everywhere in his cities are the ghost-men starving while they still breathe.

***

Soft-voiced Feng stands at the left hand of the badger king, hissing advice in the ears of his favorite student.

***

Hesper invites weary travelers to her table, ears pricked with curiosity as they tell her of lands afar. They do not know the supper she serves is the last traveler who came to her home.

***

The blue-eyed man decides he will have the dragon emperor's phoenix daughter as his bride.

***

Washkar tosses his horned head. 'Humans have not the power to defend themselves. Better we protect them.'

Arrod the Skilled rests his hand near his weapon haft. 'We will not be owned, not even in the name of protection.'

***

Blue-Fire Jaraka guts the last guard and strides into the chambers of the sacred virgins.

What happens when a spirit-blood of one type breeds with another type? Can they breed?

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

Blue-Fire Jaraka's father was a snake and his mother was a dragon. He was born with downy grey fluff covering his wings. He stole his mother's heart with his first smile, and he destroyed his father's reputation with his first breath.

His feathers grew in brilliant and blue, until his wings shimmered with a phoenix's fiery plumage.

The world had never seen his like.

A thousand stories grew around his blue flames, ten thousand stories sprang up around his exploits.

In his eighty years of life, Jaraka never stopped. He slew the Bronze-Clawed Tiger of Jagedai. He defiled the hundred sacred virgins of Shan-Lin. He stole the hoard of the Thirteen Dragon Kings of Estwn. He fought the Bison Lord's anointed son to a standstill. He walked through the Labyrinth and came out with flaming wings.

He was Blue-Fire Jaraka, and they said he laughed when he was laid in his tomb, then burned to ash.

The world would never see his like again.

What is the type of political structure in someone else's land entirely?

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

Chatan's ears flicked as he drew a black-lot. Membership on the Council. He'd never drawn the lot before, though he'd come every year like all the citizens around here.

Not that he would have been considered a citizen, if it weren't for his mother passing on her wolf blood. His father was just a human farmer, one of the peoples long ago conquered by the city to the north. In this land, though, all male spirit-bloods were citizens.

People without spirit-blood didn't like it, not really. They had to serve a term as a soldier to earn their citizenship. He'd heard more than a few comments about being unblooded mongrel.

His hand clenched around the lot. Part of him wanted to throw it back. He had no interest in the Council or the Assembly. Traveling to the city to serve for the year would be a waste of his time.

But... He opened his hand and gazed at the lot-stone. It was also one of the few excuses he might ever have to go to the city. A wolf he might be, but his father was a farmer, and his neighbors were farmers.

If he stayed here now, he might never leave.

Besides, who would notice one more or less wolf among the five hundred men of the Council or the thousands of men of the Assembly?

He grinned and held out the lot-stone to the magistrate. "Lucky me."

[bookblather.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I read the unicorn one and now I want to know how that "unicorn-girls can only be raised by harlots" thing came about.

Is it more difficult for women (particularly human women) to give birth to a spirit-blood?

Why did the badger-king start exterminating dragon-bloods?

What's this world's mythology like? How do they account for the spirit-bloods?

Tell me about bison-bloods!