A big, happy (fluffy) family!

Since changing Caliban to a brown hyena, it made more sense to have his daughters, Kamaria & Hati, match. They are actually half striped hyena through their mom!

Happy Pride from the Chronicles of Illirah and the main Genesis crew!!

I'm testing out a new format for character sheets. We'll see if I keep it like this

Aging is a little weird in Illirah for animals so I wanted to make a handy graphic to illustrate it better! Animals like lions for example live about 45 years with the first 5 years of life seeing many changes in their body before they plateau till they hit their geriatric years.

Genesis Chapter Nine

56th Day of Summer, 1342 N.E.

Rubble the cobra turns out to be friends with Hadar and Glass (Tariq’s ‘cellmates’), providing Jioni a way to contact his uncle on the inside. Rubble is small, and well camouflaged at the Tower; they’re able to slink around from cell to cell and ensure communication between not only Tariq and Jioni, but Errita and Almog as well. They happen to be stuck with Abiodun and Masika, but they are unaware of where Nova was taken. This upsets Nebula and also makes her more determined to find her sister. Over the next few days, the group is able to prepare for the escape plan Hadar and Glass Eye had concocted. It will start with Tariq feigning sickness as the guards switch off shift. This will hopefully stall the guard posted at their station, while the other guard will be in the middle of their commute to their next station; they’ll be too distracted to notice them. Meanwhile, Nebula is expected to be waiting outside ready to grab a torch and set fire to the dry brush around the Tower ensuring  a pathway is made for the stampede of animals (the Tower’s food stock) being set off by Jioni. When the guards check on Tariq, Rubble will jump out and spit at one in the face, blinding them temporarily, while Hadar and Glass subdue the other guard. The fire/stampede should be a big enough distraction to give them time to run. When the fateful day of their escape attempt begins, the first few steps go as planned. As other animals attempt to flee, the confusion allows Tariq’s group enough time to find his family/friends and escape. Nebula disappears into the crowd to find her sister against Jioni’s pleas and is lost. Almog and Tariq are separated from the others in the crowd. When guards attempt to subdue them, Almog sacrifices himself and is recaptured so Tariq can escape. Eventually Tariq is able to reconvene with Jioni, Errita, Hadar, Glass, Rubble, Abiodun, and Masika as they find a place to hide while the chaos rages on.

Genesis Chapter Eight

54th Day of Summer, 1342 N.E.

Nebula and Jioni continue to track their captured families, careful to avoid detection by the Empire soldiers/scouts. Eventually they trail their families to the Tower, but hang back to figure out a plan to get them out. While scouting the area, the pair find a snake  caught in a snare set up by the Empire for small game. Carefully they extract the snake from the snare and learn the snake is named Rubble (They/Them). Rubble tells them they have two friends on the inside trying to get out-they could try to get Nebula & Jioni’s loved ones if they plan things right.

Genesis Chapter Seven

An update to Illirah lore!

Part 3 and the last in this saga! Following the death of Farida's parents, she fell into a deep depression; rarely eating/drinking or leaving the den. Most of the pride, unaware of how to fix this issue, simply left Farida to wither. That is except the Auroramane survivors who stepped in to help. Talaith sought the expertise of the pride's Herbalist/Healer, Sardonyx. Despite whatever rivalry they had had before, Sardonyx dropped it all to help Farida back onto her feet. The two found they actually had a lot in common and were best friends from that day forward.

On a related note, this is in many ways why Talaith is so defensive of Farida, especially around her older siblings. To this day Farida is really the only pride lion who interacts with the Auroramane survivors and they are very amicable with one another. 

Part 2! Farida and Sardonyx had a pretty antagonistic relationship for some time. Farida considered Sardonyx an uncouth rogue who's tactlessness was infecting the pride. Sardonyx on the other hand regarded Farida as just another prissy, self absorbed pride lioness. Their rivalry comes to a screeching halt when Farida is delivered the news by her older siblings that their parents and their home pride, the Twilightstone pride, has been allegedly destroyed by Silverfang Kingdom. Interestingly neither Neelam nor Navaratna seemed moved by this news.

I wanna do more sketches of OCs this year so I started a list of prompts to pick from. The first will be a quick series about Sardonyx and Farida relationship! They were not always the close yet trepid sweethearts they are now. Farida, like all mages of the Empire, was personally trained by Zircon and she was his top student for the longest time. Despite his general creepiness, Farida always strived to be the best and sought his validation the most often. This changed with the arrival of a rogue... Sardonyx had been born and raised as a rogue by their now deceased mother. Before her passing, Sardonyx's mother urged the young lioness to seek out her birth father, Lord Zircon of the Shardbound Empire. And so Sardonyx sought him out. Sardonyx was a mage like her father and her magic is what Zircon was most interested in-none of his other cubs had shared his gifts. Immediately the Lord took his estranged daughter under his wing and to his surprise, they outpaced any other student he'd had before. This meant Zircon started to have less and less time for Farida which planted a seed of jealousy in the lioness which would soon take root. Sardonyx was competition and Farida would see to it her place as Zircon's protégé would be restored.

Hadar (He/Him) & Glass (She/Her) as introduced in chapter 6

Hmm Hadar’s name sure seems familiar....

‘Genesis’ Chapter Six

https://www.wattpad.com/1299634064-chronicles-of-illirah-genesis-chapter-six

‘Genesis’ Chapter Five

https://www.wattpad.com/1265987499-chronicles-of-illirah-genesis-chapter-five

It's here! Chapter 4 is OUT NOW We leave Tariq and his family for now to check back in on the Crystalspire folks

Chapter 4 will be released tomorrow! No cover art for this one, but have a sneak preview of the chapter 👀