beckyh2112: (Magic and Velocity)
Rebecca Hb. ([personal profile] beckyh2112) wrote2011-01-21 09:21 pm
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Original World Request Meme: Spirit Bloods

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.
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[identity profile] spyridona.livejournal.com 2011-01-22 03:57 am (UTC)(link)
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?