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interdimensional-lore · 1 year

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BrDim: What are Void Demons and what the hell is the zio'andar??

And we're back with another infopost! Click here to go to the masterpost with the whole shebang.

First off, the term "void demon" is a funny little term I came up with y e a r s ago to describe what Ev is (this was back before Broken Dimensions as a concept even existed). Back then, I had no idea how to go about constructing a fictional language. I still don't! But I know more than I did then, and have bits and pieces from the Old Tongue that originated in [ x ] - which is where the word "ziojic" comes from!

( keep reading below the cut )

Now if y'all harken back to the post about voids, you'll remember where I talked briefly about Old Tongue and how "zio" was the old [ x ] word for void. There's multiple words in the conlang that use "zio" - zio'cerual, zio'ajay, ziorisa and'mori, ziojic, zio'andar, ziorisa demonica... There could be more. This post is specifically about the last three:

ziojic - lit. "Void magic," or magic that is of the nature of The Void (sentient) or that operates best in voidspace. Can be used to mean "user of Void magic," and is therefore also the word people use when they actually mean ziorisa demonica because THAT is a mouthful!

zio'andar - lit. "void death-rune" or "void death rune of" if we're getting literal with the order and apostrophe usage which frequently represents a connecting word like "of." More commonly known as the void death rune, or the VDR, this rune can be used to get yourself promised resurrection from the gods. (The zio'andar was the rune at the top of this post!)

ziorisa demonica - lit. "void-creature hailing from hell." Someone who was created in the Void, or more commonly: someone who was resurrected using the zio'andar. The in-universe word for Void Demon.

Again, feel free to reference the void post for the specifics. I know all this like the back of my hand bc I made it it's like my brain child, but I know for a fact that my stuff gets tangled up when I retell it. You won't offend me by asking questions or for links either lol I could talk about this forever.

( I feel like I'm teaching a class to a room that only might have people in it lol )

So to recap: ziojic literally refers to a user of Void magic but in practice is usually used to refer to someone who is ziorisa demonica. And that word is a mouthful but it refers to someone who's been resurrected using the zio'andar. But what is the zio'andar? What's Void magic besides magic from the domain of The Void (sentient)?

We'll get to that next!

Firstly, the zio'andar is a resurrection rune that is tied to a promise even the gods cannot (or should not) break. The official way to use this rune is to carve it into your skin as you die, which implies that you should have a copy of it on hand or have it memorized and be able to draw it under the duress of a slow or painful death. In practice, you can have the rune tattooed on yourself in an accessible location (still involves blood infusion, which is the binding key here) and cut yourself over one of its lines when you die and BOOM! magic deity-approved resurrection!

But WHY would someone want that?

Revenge. Love. Especially star-crossed love in which you want to spend the rest of eternity together but are being faced with brutal death because your respective families hate each other's guts à la Romeo and Juliet. Spite. Or you can be unlucky like Ev and have it tattooed on you without permission and taught to cut over it in near-death situations because your aunt was part of a cult. Any reason, really!

And, of course, it's a guaranteed promise from the gods in charge of managing this promise. They're honor-bound to do it. And while some of the gods are sleezebags, Morsanna, Ialu, Maikoa, and Meyaa typically are not.

Morsanna, Ialu, Maikoa, and Meyaa make up the Resurrection Council. Morsanna is the goddess of Death and thus has purview over anything dealing with it directly, especially resurrection, which violates the laws of nature. Ialu is the goddess of prophecy and is on the Council to catch and interpret glimpses of the future to decide whether or not Morsanna gets to forfeit this person or not (usually not). Maikoa is the god of trickery and technically shouldn't be here, but they tried to free The Eternal Darkness once or twice and is now the Guardian of it (TED is The Void (sentient) from which all Void magic originates). Meyaa is the goddess of voidspace and is the other Guardian of The Void (sentient), and is by proxy the patron of all ziojic.

These four are good on their word most of the time (except for Maikoa, although they make an exception for this), so you can expect your plea for resurrection to be granted. If not, such as in the event that Ialu divinves that you're going to do terrible things and have ulterior (unjustifiable) motives for becoming ziorisa demonica, like maybe you killed yourself just to resurrected and get Void powers, then Morsanna intervenes and you have to fight her to first blood. And Morsanna never loses.

Now all this can be traced back to the resurrection of Nathan Shasear, way back in Era 3, which used the zio'andar before it was the zio'andar. Ialu granted him resurrection then because he saved her from a horrible non-death at the hands of someone who would use her future sight for evil, and because she's cool with Morsanna. Afterwards, the two of them god Mai and Meyaa on board for creating a promise rune to bestow upon the gods' Chosen, their right hand persons, so to speak. Or their loyal adventurers who did quests for them and faced peril on a regular basis, a job which would find an on-demand resurrection rune handy.

( Which means, in theory, that the VDR/zio'andar works multiple times. )

As for what perks that comes with, well, The Eternal Darkness (The Void (sentient)) wasn't locked away after the War for Balance for nothing. Being blessed with the magic of The Void (sentient) is like being blessed with the magic of Solorana herself - but inverted.

Solorana's life-giving creation magic is healing, non-corrosive. Light. Happy. Pleasant. The Eternal Darkness's magic was made to corrode and defy natural laws like gravity and the tentative voidspace between reality planes (see this post and the void post for info on all that). Void magic is more diluted that TED's raw power, but the themes are still the same. Here are some of the features that come with being a ziojic:

mildly corrosive blood! Ziojic blood is over 50% pure Void matter and can thus act as a mild acid, one that you wouldn't want your skin to come in contact with for prolonged periods of time (or at all, really)

exceptional teleportation skills! Ev usually calls this "the grid sense," which is pretty accurate. The grid sense is, essentially, the subconscious ability to sense the world around you on a metaphysical level. It doesn't quite allow you to see through solid matter or across improbable spans of land, but you can feel it all out with a bit of practice. Ev and Caitie Davis are fairly well-practiced with it by the 2040s, when "Book 2" takes place and are able to sort of see the literal gridding of their immediate surroundings, like a video game render. This allows a ziojic to visualize where they're teleporting to and foresee obstacles, people, or movement.

gyromanipulation (or gravity manipulation) skills! These already exist in the BrDim universe in the form of hyper- and hypogravitational magic, but ziojic gyromanipulation is a step up. It's like an instant track to mastering hyper/hypograv magic, and then some. More precise levitation and reorientation skills (no flight, that's not really a thing with just magic, even Void magic like this), better projectile aim and control, better sense of one's self when in the air (jumping, falling, etc.). It's cool.

markings! All ziorisa demonica have thick bands of color on their cheeks coming down from their eyes, as well as bands around the upper arm/bicep area.

bioluminescence! It varies from person to person as to what specifically glows, though. Caitie Davis's hair glows and takes on a plasma-like flow, and she can make her bones glow. Ev's hair glows a little at the ends (the orange part) and technically their hair is a ziojic feature in and of itself - it was just brown before. Their freckles also glow in the dark, along with their scars. Corrin Merrinak (who I haven't introduced yet) has horns that glow in the dark. All ziojic's eyes glow though, and have dark/black sclera.

ziojic can survive in the void with no life support measures! They are also immovable by the ziois, ocean-like waters on the edges of flat worlds like Tartarus or parts of the Iron Archs.

And that's the scoop! The ziojic race definitely has some of the most complicated lore out of the bunch lol but they're some of my favorites to write and draw. I love their sick powers too!!

Now. Here's the part I'm obligated to say because I care about humanity as a whole (content warning):

DO NOT GET THIS TATTOOED ON YOUR VERY REAL BODY !!!!FOR THE EXPRESS REASON!!! TO COMMIT DIE TO SEE IF THE GODS WILL RESURRECT YOU.

DO NOT. PLEASE DO NOT.

Get this tattooed on yourself if you think my project is cool and/or like the design. You've got my permission as long as you told people where you got it. It's one of the tattoos I'm pretty sure I want to get someday, so I get that. But do not do so thinking that it will resurrect you if you cut it when you die. It will not.

End content warning.

I love you all, and I mean that very genuinely (platonically <3). But if you think for some reason that the funky lil complicated rune I made up will bring you back to life with insane powers, you're wrong. Go touch some grass and turn down the edgy megalomania, please.

Otherwise, if you feel inclined to such things for more complicated reasons, please reach out to someone you trust. If you don't want to do that, think of your pets. your favorite plants. what they'd do without you. call or text a hotline. go stand in the sun. eat chocolate - MAKE SURE YOU'RE HYDRATED AND FED AND NOT ILL. Coming from experience, these things do help. And strangely, things do tend to get better. A little. In increments so small that sometimes you don't notice until suddenly it's been a year and now you're agnostic instead of traditionalist, but it happens. Even if it does feel like shit sometimes anyway.

K'oyacyi, folks. Hope you enjoyed the lore! Take care <3

#broken dimensions #brdim lore #worldbuilding #magic system #brdim gods #original project #creative writing

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