Wednesday, 7 August 2019

Turunda & The Devoted Trilogy - World Building Prompts, Part 4

Penultimate installation of my Great Western Woods' #WorldBuildingQuest compilation, bringing together all my prompt question answers from Instagram to one convenient place, introducing the world of The Devoted trilogy.

Read chapters 1-5 of The Zi'veyn, the first book of the trilogy, for free on Kindle, Kindle app or in your browser right here.
Buy The Zi'veyn and book two, The Sah'niir, from all Kindle stores for £2.49 each, and in paperback from select Amazon stores. UK & DE Amazon ship right across Europe.



Day 22: Magic!
   Magic is born in the heart, in a third ventricle which itself is a left-over trait from the elves, and a result of cross-racial breeding. The magic joins the blood in that upper ventricle on its way out of the heart through the aorta and is pumped through the body. One's strength is dependent not upon the magic within their blood, but their resilience - their body's ability to contain, process and utilise it. One with low resilience but high magic will, ultimately, be a mage of lower ability. One with high resilience and lower magic will be either just as powerful or more than the former. One with both high resilience and high magic will be more powerful. One with extremely low resilience may not be accepted into the Order at all, as their magic would be too weak to use.
   Before their extinction, magic was cast effortlessly by the elves. Humans, however, are 'impure' in their magic and create signs with their fingers to help focus their thoughts and the commands to make up spell chains. A spell to create a chair, for example, will consist of multiple signs to determine its size, weight, material, colour, design, and strength. A spell to create fire will consist of signs to cover the size, colour, temperature and liveliness. A practised mage can create signs at the bat of an eye.
I'm using some of these gestures for the front cover of book three. I spent 20 minutes sitting in front of a camera recording my fingers making all kinds of shapes. I do not envy mages. It is hard.

Day 23: Technology
   Technology is basic. They're just discovering the use of fish oils. Magic reigns supreme, but it isn't trusted. It's only a matter of time, now, before someone discovers something that will begin to level the playing field...

Day 24: Medicine & Science
   Medicine consists of salves and basic medicines, but it has all progressed beyond lobotomies. Broken bones can be reset, fevers broken, and many ailments cured. But plagues will still get ahead of them far too fast, cancer will always win, and amputation is a frequent resort. Magic among the Order cannot be used to heal, largely due to its perception. Viewed as a tool, its use is limited. The tribes, however, perceive magic as a living thing, and so rather than force magic to do what they want it to, what few magic-wielders there are among the tribes use their magic *alongside* other knowledge to help the magic do what they want it to. It's often effective - but it's a last resort. If a salve or poultice will do, they will use that instead.

Day 25: Weaponry
   It's a sword and sorcery tale, and a sword and sorcery world. There are swords, arrows and magic abound. War still includes the use of siege engines and war machines. Magic is, by far, the most deadly, but mages of the military wing are usually used to fight opposing mages while the two conflicting non-magic militaries have at eachother. The mages are there on both sides, ultimately, to protect their militaries from the magic of the other. Petra gets special mention here: as a non-mage and a duelist, she carries an arsenal about her person: an arming sword on her hip, daggers at her back, and a bolas that comes in unfortunately handy.

Day 26: Historic Wars
   The Arishan War was a costly and bloody civil war in Turunda centuries ago that came as a result of the Crown keeping heavy secrets from its people. Royal decrees that came out of the blue were the first clue, and as they gradually oppressed certain classes of civilians, those civilians began to fight back.
   The Red Nest War, a dictatorship rising from Dweron in the south almost one hundred years ago, was put to its end by the actions of one man in Turunda, tricking the advancing military into stealing poisoned grain. When it worked, others did the same, and the military was decimated overnight, sending the dictator fleeing.

Day 27: Social Change & Revolution
   The Arishan War leveled the playing field and put the Crown in its place. Without his people behind him, not even the king has any power.

Day 28: Natural Disasters
   Mount Tolendra last erupted a about 150 years ago, casting a cloud of ash over Turunda from the north-west that had a disastrous effect on crops and disease. Floods have occurred, and earthquakes, but nothing in documented human history has been very severe. Yet.

Day 29: Other Historic Events
   The elves had suppressed humans prior to their sudden disappearance, supposedly at the hands of Zikhon due to their waning belief in Vastal, and upon their sudden disappearance seven hundred years ago, humans were elevated overnight. Some elven cities were destroyed, others abandoned, others taken over, and after a number of civil wars among themselves, order was eventually established when people rallied behind the figures who proved they could build them a future. Those individuals eventually became kings.



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