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The Heart of the Mountain
Long ago, in the depths of a mountain that had yet to be named, there was a god, and that god had questions.
It was an odd thing for a god to have questions, because it was a god. It possessed limitless power based on manipulation of cosmological forces. It didn’t need to ask why the sun rose. The sun rose because the god’s sister had birthed a great and fiery dragon. In several millennia, the god would approve as an elven sage became so incensed with this explanation that she would ascend in a ball of incandescent magic to argue with the dragon for the rest of time, and there would be two suns. But at this moment, there was only one sun.
If the gods were all abstract concepts made manifest and given limitless power, did anything truly exist. If all of creation was a reflection of the limitless power of the gods, why then was it bound by seemingly mundane laws, such as gravity? The Mountain paused, and made note of the notion of gravity, because it had noticed that things typically only fell in one direction, drawn towards a greater mass.
Understandably, the other gods sometimes needed a break from their querulous sibling.
Still, the Mountain had questions, and it needed someone to help it look into these questions. Someone had to understand the workings of reality -- insofar, it noted, as reality existed, and was not just a consensus reached by observation, a mass delusion that all living beings agreed upon in order to not go mad in the face of the infinite -- and, more importantly, make notes on reality.
At first, the Mountain considered recruiting some of its siblings’ creations for this very important task of Making Notes On The Nature Of Physics -- the Mountain paused, and wrote another note reminding it to invent physics, and then while it was at it, the other sciences, and also mathematics. But some of these projects might take more time than was allotted to its siblings’ creations. Worse, while the abyss would take their souls and return them to new bodies, the newly returned souls wouldn’t remember where they’d left off in the process.
No, the Mountain decided, as it made a series of other notes about things like chemical interactions and the use of acidic compounds, and why some rocks radiated a dangerous energy, and tucked those away for later, it would have to take matters into its own hands. The Mountain made a note to determine if it did, in fact, have hands, or just the abstract concept manifested in the most functional form for its purposes. It was, after all, a god, and therefore could have easily just moved the matter with its will.
When the gods had made the world, they had populated it with a variety of living things. Some of those things were relatively hairless and bipedal, and the Mountain’s siblings had quite leaned into that form, just tweaking little things to suit their needs. The Mountain dismissed the humanoid form for its purposes. There were only so many variations before one ran out of ideas, after all. It did consider the notion of a long-lived slime mold capable of advanced calculations but suspected that, while this would be efficient, it would also be quite disgusting.
The Mountain began to review its notes on the various living things in the world. Not trees, it thought. Though they were long-lived and very good at recording their immediate conditions, they were also immobile, which would make observing things not near them very difficult. Fish were similarly restricted to aquatic observations, and as the Mountain looked deeper into the oceans, it discovered that it was in fact quite concerned about what life had gotten up to in the trenches, and decided to leave all of that alone, even if a squid could take notes on ten different topics at once. Birds did have the advantage of exceptional mobility and eyesight, but the Mountain’s preliminary experiment to see if birds could take notes on the wing did not end well. Also, the crows kept writing naughty words instead of taking notes.
After much deliberation and careful experimentation, the Mountain reached the conclusion that the optimal form for research and development was something with clever hands, a diligent work ethic, and ample fat stores to survive long-term stays in a library or other academic setting. With much solemn ritual and even more solemn observation of lab safety, the Mountain bestowed upon the creatures of the woodlands the light of knowledge. Unto the humble creatures of the field, the mice and rats, the foxes and badgers, the beavers and squirrels, the moles and shrews, the Mountain gave wisdom and understanding. It granted them the ability to ask questions of the natural world, to dig as metaphorically deeply as they had previously done quite literally. It granted them exceptionally long lifespans, so that they would have plenty of time for their experiments. It also made necessary biological adjustments so that they could properly handle lab equipment -- once they had invented lab equipment, of course, and the Mountain made a note to impart through a prophetic vision the concept of a laboratory.
Unfortunately, the Mountain only realized too late that it had left a little bit of the light of knowledge lying around, and that, while that was on a very high table, and the Mountain had only turned its back for a moment, that was long enough for the raccoons. If nothing else, the Mountain supposed, the raccoons would ask questions that no one else dared to ask. There was, of course, a reason why no one dared to ask some of these questions, but the Mountain rationalized this by telling itself that at least the raccoons smart enough to not be blown to smithereens when they discovered white phosphorous would pass that knowledge along to their descendants.
The Mountain could have hidden the white phosphorous deep beneath the earth, of course, but while it had been chasing down the raccoons, the moles had invented a preliminary mining process, and the squirrels were well on their way to a well-organized storage system. This pleased the Mountain. Though progress might bear casualties, someone would write down what went wrong, and eventually find a solution
#fantasy books#pantheon#writblr#world building wednesday#sixcitiesofficial#the six cities#White Mountain#Heart of the Mountain
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Friends, Romans, countrymen, I and my friend are writing a book! We've got an official tumblr set up at @sixcitiesofficial where we're posting worldbuilding stuff, art, possibly some sample chapters. The Six Cities is a fantasy series about tired thirtysomethings who would really just like everything to calm down. It's got swords! It's got swears! It's got an elderly beaver lady with a STEM degree and boundless grandma energy! I keep having to be reminded by my coauthor that straight people exist, so it's only got as many of those as is necessary to maintain population density!
If that sounds appealing, please give us a follow and enjoy the stuff we're posting leading up to publication, and if you like what you see, please reblog our stuff so that we can inflict our worldbuilding on as many hapless eyes as possible.
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You remember the beginning, when you helped to shape the world.
You remember your birth
You said it was magic, and so you became magic,
You and your siblings, forming a world out of the infinite possibility of nothingness
You remember when you shaped life, giving form to dreams and wishes. The beasts of the land and the air and the sea. The climbing vines, the tiniest flowers, the mightiest trees. You shaped it, and as you saw it, you loved it so. You remember that, don’t you? How much you loved it?
When they first saw you, they were so happy, that you’d given them the world beyond the place where they would have grown. You showed them this wonderful world that you had created.
You remember when they died, because they would return.
You remember when the world broke, don’t you?
Don’t you remember how the skies churned and shook?
How your brother took away the world, because he’d break you? How your siblings saw too late?
Don’t you remember?
You loved it so much
You were magic and creation and joy and the infinite potential of the endless void,
You made them forget,
Remember
You loved the world
Once you restored what had been done, you could welcome them all back.
remember?
How we will bring it all together again, and it will be as it was, wonderful and whole and beautiful.
#fantasy books#pantheon#writblr#world building wednesday#sixcitiesofficial#the six cities#Remember#You have to remember
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What is The Six Cities about?
Butts.
Alright now that we've got your attention.
The Six Cities is what happens when two people who are uncomfortably alike have too many interests in common, and go "hey let's write a book for fun" and then commit to the bit. It's a fantasy adventure. It's an ode to our friendship. It's got smooching (not in this book, but that's for plot reasons, there's some Spicy Handholding though!) There are swords. There are guns. There's no transphobia, which should be a low bar to clear in 2023 but here we are. There's a mishmash of genres because we like a lot of different things and cannot commit. Drama! Intrigue! Swears!
And yes, there's some booty.
Also theres a four foot tall anthropomorphic beaver grandma with a chemistry degree.
We hope that you'll read the book when it comes out. Until then, enjoy our shitposts and some very fancy art that Anthony will be doing (as well as the cover because he's very good).
#the six cities#sixcitiesofficial#fantasy books#writblr#authors of tumblr#“cannot commit” is a bi micro aggression Anthony just did against himself
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Every major city is connected by at least one major elfroad, and more trace across the land. Weary travellers welcome the sight of the distinctive tricoloured stone, offering some semblance of safety in a dangerous world. The settlements outside of the cities are always near, if not on an elfroad. The three caravans, Ild, Jorden, and Vind, in their neverending route act as traders and merchants, and offer the safest passage along the way. Those looking to travel with an elfroad must be prepared to offer something useful in return, though; life on the road is hard and resources can't be squandered. That said, the definition of "useful" changes from caravan to caravan. Anyone who can carry even half a tune is a welcome addition to a caravan travelling that one incredibly boring stretch of road between Palandra and White Mountain.
Next week we travel to the balmy, misquote infested paradise that is Milltown! (Swamp adjacent).
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The Great Dragon
Did they ever tell you where the scalefolk came from?
No?
Well, do you know why scalefolk all have five letter names?
When the gods made the world, they made the sky and the sea, the forests and the mountains and the fields. And when they had finished, they made the people. The Mountain made the furfolk and the Lady made the forestfolk, the Wanderer made the elves, and Aedfex the humans.
The Great Dragon carried her own broods. Her first child shone bright and hot, and he flew into the sky to become the first sun. Her second brood was a pair of twins, pale and luminous, who followed their brother to become the moons, to watch over their mother’s work from on high. Her third and fourth children were strong and fast, and they became the tides and the wind. And finally, the Dragon laid five eggs, so small that she could hold them all in one claw.
But the Dragon was weak and tired, so she searched for somewhere safe to rest. Each beat of her wings shook the world, because the Great Dragon was so enormous that she crossed the entire land in only five days. She went to each of the other gods, to see if they could give her somewhere to rest. In the north, she searched for the Lady, and a place to sleep, but the scent of the forests made her ill, so the Dragon continued on her way. She went to the Mountain, but the furfolk were so busy making new things that the sounds kept her awake. The Wanderer sent word that he had a place for her, but the Dragon couldn’t find him, for he couldn’t stay still. And as Aedifex was building his great city, there was nowhere for the Dragon to rest, so he suggested she go to the east.
When she came to the east, to the edge of the world, the Great Dragon lay down at last. But she still couldn’t rest, because her eggs hadn’t yet hatched. Then, she met five humans. Aedifex had told them what she had done, that she’d given them the sun and the moons, the tides and the winds, and the Great Dragon’s first four children had told them why their mother was crossing the land and shaking the world with her wingbeats. The humans were grateful, to the Dragon, and offered to guard her eggs so that she could rest.
When the Great Dragon woke, the humans were gone, and her eggs were too, and she was afraid that the humans had betrayed her. But as she raised up her head, she saw the humans approaching her, and with them came her fifth brood. They weren’t bright and terrible like their siblings, instead they were clever and wise. As the Great Dragon had flown across the land looking for somewhere to land, as they slept in her hand, they had learned from everything that the other gods had done.
When the fifth brood had hatched, the first thing that they had seen was the humans, and so they changed to look like them. They had neither tails, nor wings, nor claws, with soft skin instead of hard scales. But they kept their mothe’s horns, and their mother’s eyes, and some of them kept a few scales. They wanted to know more about this new world, and on her back, the Great Dragon raised up the mountains of Teveir, where the fifth brood decided to build a city in which to keep everything that they learned. Some of the humans stayed there, and some of the fifth brood followed the humans back to their home. And since then, for the dragons who founded Teveir, and the days that their mother carried them, every scalefolk has five letters in their name.
#fantasy books#pantheon#writblr#world building wednesday#sixcitiesofficial#the six cities#Teveir#The Great Dragon
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The Wanderer
On the road, it was traditional to offer a meal and a place by the fire to any wanderers who passed on by. A traveller who joined for longer than a day would have to earn their keep, but once night fell and the roads were no longer safe, even the smallest caravans would spare a bowl of stew for a stranger.
The traveller had accepted the meal, and even helped with the cleanup, and as the caravan gathered around them, he offered to tell them a story. A few of them hid smiles when, with a playful seriousness, he asked their youngest member if she knew where the elfroads had come from. With the solemn dignity of a scholar, she answered that of course she knew, but did he.
It was an old story. Every caravanner knew it, or a version of it. The traveller leaned back against a stump and produced a finely carved clay pipe from the depths of his cloak. “I will tell you the version I learned,” he said. His fellows around the fire settled in, tucking blankets around their shoulders, or over their laps. “It begins, as the story always does, with the end of the elven cities. Once, the elves lived in cities-- ”
“Grand cities,” the child interrupted, even as her parents hushed her.
The traveller chuckled. “So you have heard that version.” He blew a puff of smoke into the night sky. “Many of them were grand, it’s true. Some were just cities. But in every city, the elves built using a special stone.” He tucked his pipe between his teeth and picked up a handful of the worn gravel of the elfroad, letting the coloured stones trickle through his fingers. “And the finest building in every city -- grand or not,” he teased, as the child nodded her approval. “Was the temple to the Wanderer. In those days, the elves believed that he would visit at the oddest hours. They wanted him to feel welcome, like how you have welcomed me.”
“Was he called the Wanderer then?” the child persisted.
He did love an enthusiastic audience. A good story could stand up to interruptions. It made it more interesting the next time it was told.
“He had a different name in those days,” the traveller said. “None remembers what it was. When the cataclysms began, the elves needed a Wanderer, someone unafraid to walk into the wilds and find the next road. As the skies roared and the earth trembled, the elves gave up their cities, and when their god saw this, he happily gave up his name, and his temples. His children needed him more than he needed a fine home. A temple need not be a building. Any place where a god is remembered will do. The Wanderer took the stones from his temples, and he laid them across the land wherever he roamed, so that his children would have somewhere safe to rest their heads at night.”
The child gave him a stern look, as she considered the story he’d told. “I liked that one,” she said at last, and he was pleased that he’d met her high standards. “That is the best one I have heard so far.”
She did not falter when he met her gaze and studied her in turn. “What is your name?” the traveller asked.
“Thyra.”
“You will have to remember this version, then, Thyra.” Though the traveller spoke with the same gravity that she had pronounced her judgement, he could not quite keep the smile from the corners of his mouth. “Although I imagine that it will be different when you retell it.”
“The story is always different.” Thyra yawned, and her parents bundled her into a blanket, before bidding the traveller goodnight. The other caravanners followed; the day had been long, as had the day before, and as would the next. But because the caravan had welcomed him to their campfire, they would have fair skies and the first signs of summer to ease their journey.
The story was always different, but the Wanderer knew that.
He never told the same story twice.
#fantasy books#pantheon#writblr#world building wednesday#sixcitiesofficial#the six cities#ElfRoads#The Wanderer
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BOOK IS COMING SOON ITS IMMINENT
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE SIX CITIES SERIES IS COMING!
ANTHONY (co-author) CANT STOP ME BECAUSE HE DOESN'T HAVE CONTROL OF MY COMPUTER AND PROBABLY FORGOT THE PASSWORD TO OUR TUMBLR.
HI MY NAME IS ALLISON AND I CO-WROTE THIS BOOK.
HES ALWAYS TELLING ME TO CALM MY TITS AND NOT POST THINGS BUT IM DOING IT ANYWAY.
HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS.
THIS FINAL FANTASY D&D INSPIRED SHIT FEST IS ON ITS WAY SOMETIME THIS YEAR.
AT LEAST A MONTH OR TWO FROM NOW.
DON'T QUOTE ME ON THAT.
Oh yeah the book is called The Looming City.
Art will come as soon as Anthony stops hassling me about posting.
#fantasy books#writers on tumblr#writblr#the six cities#sixcitiesofficial#IVE GOT THE POWER#NO ONE CAN STOP ME#WAIT WHAT WAS THAT#OH GOD--#HE GOT IN#HELP#NOOOOOOO HE'S RETURNED FROM THE ART VOID#it's going to be more than a month or two#but it will be this year
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To kick off the nebulous countdown to the release of the first book, we will be posting a series of mood boards so that you get to know all the different places that we made up in our minds.
Welcome to Teveir. The oldest city on the continent (Palandra DNI). Its major exports include; wood, paper, the minerals quarried from the abandoned body of a dragon god, wood, coal, and problems.
This is the city of the scalefolk, descendants of the dragon god that left their body behind.
The scalefolk are known for their horns, their inability to do magic, and their shitty attitudes. The shitty attitudes are probably because Teveir is in the middle of a cold, damp, rainy forest. Great climate for the books, though!
Tune in next week as we leave this temperate damp hellhole for a freezing cold magical wasteland!
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Milltown! Home of swamps, gators, factories, and people partying like its 1920. Contrary to previously stated information, it is filled with MOSQUITOS. Although misquotes are just as annoying.
Depending on who you ask, the founders of Milltown were either heretics driven out of Palandra, or the only ones who had it right about the form of their god, the Lady Architect.
The city is located, and this cannot be stressed enough, NEXT TO the swamp, not, as hateful outside propaganda insists, IN the swamp. The distinction is by and large an academic one, because the swamp problems remain.
Milltown is a center of industry and innovation, home to clever-minded engineers and fabricators who shape metal from the city's mines into strange and wonderous new gadgets, most of which even work as intended!
Once the suns have set, the city transforms, with every window lit by a party within and the clang of machines replaced by music and the sounds of dancing.
Stay tuned for next week's board, as we venture into White Mountain!
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Aedifex / Our Lady Architect
In the beginning, the world was young and the gods had no forms, and a stone dreamed of possibility. The stone was low and humble, but it saw what it could become if shaped by strong hands and cunning minds; tall and strong, eternal and magnificent.
And as the stone dreamed, its dreams wondered what else they could become, shaped not just from stone, but in all that the natural world had to offer. Where lightning struck sand, the dreams saw glass, and they imagined how else it could be formed. Where plants grew tall and strong, they saw flax and wondered if it could not be spun into new things. They saw the potential of the world and how it could be shaped, and the dreams begat the first humans.
With their clever hands, the humans carved the stone, and they released that which the stone had dreamed into the world. Each day the dreams marvelled at the new things that their children had wrought. But one day, the dreams woke, and heard their children crying out for their parent, and the dream imagined itself a body.
At first, the dreams had thought their likeness would be as that of its children. But as they sought the ideal shape, they saw what their children dreamed that they could build. The dreams saw mighty spires, windows like lace cut from stone, buildings that defied the weight of stone to pierce the clouds, and they loved their children’s ambitions. They saw the minute workings of a thousand moving parts, of ores transformed into metals, of metals transformed into alloys, of alloys transformed into wonders.
The dreams whispered the secrets of the world to their children, and as the dreams’ children built, the dreams took what the builders imagined and discarded as impossible, and the dreams built themselves a body, an ever-shifting monument to all that could not be, but someday might. Then they shaped for themselves a second body, one shaped like their children, so that they could visit their dreams, to better understand and guide them in their pursuits.
While well-intentioned, the dreams came to quickly understand that this was, perhaps, a mistake.
As children are wont to, the humans argued, and division grew between them. A new name was bestowed upon the dreams, and then another. The dreams had never had a name. Nor had they needed one. But now, they had two. To some of their children, the dreams were Aedifex, the great builder, the eternal cathedral, the source from which magic and inspiration sprang. To others, they were Our Lady Architect, the great planner, the eternal mother who birthed innovation and nurtured advancement.
Their children had figured out architecture and engineering, Aedifex the Architect told themselves as they dreamed of a new concept, that of a divine headache. Eventually, they would wrap their heads around religion.
#fantasy books#pantheon#writblr#world building wednesday#sixcitiesofficial#the six cities#Palandra#Milltown#Aedifex#Our Lady Architect
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For our last city, we come to Palandra, the jewel of the south, the center of culture, style, and elegance, and that's just what they have to say about themselves.
Opinions on Palandra vary from person to person, and that's just within the city. Those within the city laud it for its history, its architecture, its legacy of powerful magic. Those outside of the city hold the not entirely incorrect stereotype that many a Palandrian could perhaps pull their heads out of their posteriors.
Palandra is many things. One of the oldest cities on the continent. A snakepit of decadence, intrigue and backbiting. A powerful military and magical bastion. A bunch of arrogant meddlers who look down their noses on the rest of the world because they have weird hair. Everyone can agree that the food is fantastic, though.
The city is as famous for its fabric as it is for the complex mess of politics that, as much as the rest of the world laughs at, also gives them cause to breathe a sigh relief. If Palandra's attention is focused in on itself, they can't spread outwards again.
Next week we will reveal our next series of posts as we delve further into the world and lore of The Six Cities Series!
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White Mountain is for lovers!
The tourism board is trying a new slogan, because “White Mountain is for intellectuals in search of vigorous and thoughtful scientific discourse leading to advancements in the fields of science and the betterment of the furfolk” was just too long, and “White Mountain is for mad science!” gave the wrong impression.
White Mountain is both the mountain itself, named for the snow that perpetually covers its peak, and the enormous city that the furfolk built within. With the aid of the twin beacons of engineering and a deft paw with the old acid phial, the furfolk used their scientific knowledge to carve out this bustling metropolis, the centre of learning at the heart of the world.
At its base, the cheerful merchant town of Wealdstone acts as a go-between, a place for traders and caravans to rest and shelter from the cold, to sell their wares and buy all of the delightful things that White Mountain’s alchemists produce*.
The furfolk were once common woodland creatures, elevated when the Heart Of The Mountain bestowed the light of knowledge upon them**. Now they study the sciences, healing, magic, astronomy, interesting mushrooms, delving into whatever fascinates them over the course of their long lives.
Stay tuned next week for Palandra! The OTHER main character!
*Due to legal reasons, White Mountain carefully regulates what its alchemists are selling in Wealdstone. What Hyacinth Grapplegrasp considers to be “helpful” and what the rest of the world considers to be “dangerous, unethical, a risk to the world, and just plain creepy”, overlap quite a bit. If Venn diagrams existed in this setting, that one would be a circle.
**Or, in the case of the raccoons, they stole it because it looked interesting.
#fantasy books#moodboard#writblr#world building wednesday#sixcitiesofficial#the six cities#White Mountain
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Here is a moodboard for the first book!
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