FA+
Shop
Potential large canonical changes inbound?
2 months ago
General
Hey so its what the title says! Titles are good at that, telling you what's in the journal?
So I've been fighting burnout for many months and, working on the Yurnic kobolds kinda became a sign that I should rework the canon of The Realm of the Quiet age, the DragonScape, Õndem, whatever you wish to call it.
Now changing canons used to be a thing I would do all the time when things got too convoluted, the earliest drawings of this account are quite literally the "reset" canon which was the change between a prior canon and that canon, which eventually got reset into the "New Pulse" canon, which then slowly mutated into the current canon I tell my stories in
"The Long Hike Canon" as its the version of the setting built by and around The Long Hike.
We've been in this version of the setting quite literally longer than any other, for 4 years now!, that is over half of the years I've worked on this whole project period! So its been the longest running canon!.. And its also hard to really reset without retcons to the comic. Reality is the comic kinda cements me into this canon that I used to find fun! but for about a year now i've felt pinned down by.
So I am setting up some larger canonical changes!
Some of these haven't happened yet and so are probably fine for sneaking into the comic later, some of which are going to be retcons that are going to be noticeable to varying levels! I may release some of the doodles I've been drawing off of work and between comics to cover these more in depth. But for now I wanna just cover the basic ideas by text for the folks who enjoy reading these sorts of things.
First the name change!
The Realm of the Quiet Age.
Maybe controversial, but I like it. I think it really speaks to what I like about the setting of the dragonscape. Its a place in which there is no single historical narrative, like the dark ages after the bronze age collapse or the collapse of Shang dynasty China, or the collapse of western Rome. This is a place where noone is writing their histories and so they get lost in the dark. But rather than a dark age this isn't a bleak thing in this place, nor good, just the reality of it. In a big universe of small stories, the universe may sound quiet though it is bustling with the lives of untold numbers of folks!
I think it captures the themes I want, and also I think "DragonScape" just... gives the wrong idea. Like a fantastical world of Wings of Firesque dragons and wyverns which the setting hasn't been for 6 or 7 years.
Its a realm where no one history rules, its an anarchic place where nations rise and fall into a sea of tribes, bands and chiefdoms.
Next up are some changes to drekir!
Drekir really are the heart of the setting to me, its what I built this world to explore! both people becoming drekir and them dealing with it as well as the cultures they and their descendants could go onto construct! But I find the restrictions that used to be interesting to just be... annoying, at this point. So I want to make some changes to the species broadly speaking.
Now some of these I have posted, like here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61312846/
but I am going to go through all of them one at a time
Firstly I want to make drekir generally a bit smaller Not too much smaller! It is important to remember that people in my experience often think that drekir are smaller than they really are. Imua is about the size and weight of a full human, even though she's 4ft tall, she is still 12ft long. Arctic drekir are usually big enough to be comparable to the size of caribou.
Drekir are actually pretty big! But I want to shrink them down a bit.
The current plan is to make the average drek size (such as Imua) around 34-40 inches in height, the average small breed (Jat) around 28-32 inches in height, and larger breeds (Getterbet for example) around 42-48 inches in height. Puts them more on the smaller side, though they still are far from tiny. That would put Imua closer to the size and weight of a smaller Great Dane than what she currently is.
Now this height change will have some knock on effects to their interactions with metal, how much food they need to eat, etc. but not too much. Most the basic established lore should still apply here!
The breed rework I've already posted about So click the link above for more detail, but the long and short is to streamline the breeds out, simply establishing a temperate, tropical, arctic and alpine breed that have far more variation in the specific regions a population lives. I find the current stricter breed system both convoluted and restrictive. So the goal is to both simplify it so folks can understand it and make it more flexible so folks can have more fun designing their own unique populations and so I can do the same!
And also some social behavior changes not to den psychology, I think that shits great. But rather, I more want to push drekir to have a light parental drive to teach and raise their kids.
Still nothing compared to humans, I still want them to have a "we'll lay more" sort of outlook, but I don't want them to be downright neglectful of their offspring either. I am not sure where that balance is yet, but the idea is to have them have some emotional degree of attachment to raising their kids as a collective rather than any one of them.
That way they may dedicate at least some time to feeding, sheltering, and teaching their offspring than they currently do. Or at the very least it can become more culturally variable.
So that way kids have a bit more education when they grow up and when they set out on their own.
And there are some light NSFW changes Mostly in the drastic toning down of sex pheromones from the lore, I think I've written them and drawn them a bit too overboard in the NSFW comics, so I am gonna see about lightening the sheer amount of that. I won't get into detail here as thats probably going to need some new NSFW doodles. But thats how it goes.
[b]Next up are changes to drektech[/b]
Which is of course extremely culturally variable.
Now I want to keep the focus on a feeling of a "chalcolithic expanse", a blending of metal and stone, but I also admittingly feel a bit creatively pinned in by copper. I do still love copper! Best metal, but I want more creative flexibility in what metals look like and I want to make the complex rules around different magical bronzes, copper, iron, etc. more easily understandable to folks looking into the setting!
You will find a lot of these changes are about streamlining, fancy that
So I want to introduce a new, broad family of metals that, much like the manachert and spellglass that have appeared in the comics, is made by using real physical metal to lock the magical stãl (teal steel) into a physical state.
Essentially the manachert of metals, a Stabilized Stãl. The current name is a blend of haida words, Yatal, as the generic settingwide name.
Its a metal that is generally made via a process similar to the Sundering I've already talked about at length in other posts, and once properly made its a metal that can be cold hammered slowly, hot hammered quickly, or melted and casted into a mold to create a more complex shape. Likewise since its the stãl that is making the metal work, I am thinking of just making it so that any metal+mana can make some variation of Yatal metal. Aluminum, copper, iron. etc/
Now the metal isn't perfect, its still going to be a soft metal, with different qualities having a hardness somewhere between copper and wrought iron by comparison. But depending on how its made it can do a lot of things.
It can be a basic metal for tools, jewelry, cookware, etc. But it can also be used and elementized to make magical heating or cooling elements, to make acidic cutting tools for shaping hard materials, or even electrified weapons for shocking, or even serve with wind elementization to store mechanical energy. All in ways that are less restrictive and more magically focused than the current metallurgy of the Quiet Age, though it is still not necessary if not wanted.
The general blend between mana and metal is also 50/50, which is great for stretching out a supply of metal ore incredibly well! But the process for making Yatal metal is however that you cannot make it en masse and, like manachert, mana is a fickle resource even if technically abundant. So the average community may be limited in how much metal they can practically make, thus resulting in many turning to alternative materials to fill the gap.
Lastly, how you can get TF'd/Isekai'd into The Realm of the Quiet Age!
Portals!
One of my biggest sticking points with my own setting, as a guy who likes to see folks get scaled down a notch, is that The Pulse is a one time event. The Pulse is what makes the 1st generation of drekir from the peoples of the Americas... So they get tf'd into drekir and save some colonials who also get drekified
(see Imua)
that's it!
So I am thinking of adding an idea to Õndemic reality in which it opens portals in other parallel timelines and realities through which anyone can enter and get turned into a drek as well as trapped in Õndemic reality.
The general gist of the explanation is that, by its nature, Õndemic reality is unstable and aggressive, it swallows things and writhes in the cosmic weave. So often the sheer aggression of this reality causes it to push into other realities and timelines, thus creating portals through which things in those timelines and realities can traverse!
Of course those who do enter are going to be rapidly crushed by the Õndemic pressure of the Raddir and promptly turned into drekir, or draconically mutated. The force of the raddir is something that may have drowned gods under the weight of billions of gnashing maws, its not something most things can fight back against.
But it gives an avenue for more transformations either in the writings of folks who are writing stories in the setting or, you know, me! I like that!
That's all for now
I have work tomorrow so for now I must go to bed, I may elaborate more on this or save it for potential drawings. But I really want to push forward a lot of these changes to make the setting easier to understand, easier to write for, and just more creatively flexible. It's a case of change the setting or change the project with me at this point.
So I've been fighting burnout for many months and, working on the Yurnic kobolds kinda became a sign that I should rework the canon of The Realm of the Quiet age, the DragonScape, Õndem, whatever you wish to call it.
Now changing canons used to be a thing I would do all the time when things got too convoluted, the earliest drawings of this account are quite literally the "reset" canon which was the change between a prior canon and that canon, which eventually got reset into the "New Pulse" canon, which then slowly mutated into the current canon I tell my stories in
"The Long Hike Canon" as its the version of the setting built by and around The Long Hike.
We've been in this version of the setting quite literally longer than any other, for 4 years now!, that is over half of the years I've worked on this whole project period! So its been the longest running canon!.. And its also hard to really reset without retcons to the comic. Reality is the comic kinda cements me into this canon that I used to find fun! but for about a year now i've felt pinned down by.
So I am setting up some larger canonical changes!
Some of these haven't happened yet and so are probably fine for sneaking into the comic later, some of which are going to be retcons that are going to be noticeable to varying levels! I may release some of the doodles I've been drawing off of work and between comics to cover these more in depth. But for now I wanna just cover the basic ideas by text for the folks who enjoy reading these sorts of things.
First the name change!
The Realm of the Quiet Age.
Maybe controversial, but I like it. I think it really speaks to what I like about the setting of the dragonscape. Its a place in which there is no single historical narrative, like the dark ages after the bronze age collapse or the collapse of Shang dynasty China, or the collapse of western Rome. This is a place where noone is writing their histories and so they get lost in the dark. But rather than a dark age this isn't a bleak thing in this place, nor good, just the reality of it. In a big universe of small stories, the universe may sound quiet though it is bustling with the lives of untold numbers of folks!
I think it captures the themes I want, and also I think "DragonScape" just... gives the wrong idea. Like a fantastical world of Wings of Firesque dragons and wyverns which the setting hasn't been for 6 or 7 years.
Its a realm where no one history rules, its an anarchic place where nations rise and fall into a sea of tribes, bands and chiefdoms.
Next up are some changes to drekir!
Drekir really are the heart of the setting to me, its what I built this world to explore! both people becoming drekir and them dealing with it as well as the cultures they and their descendants could go onto construct! But I find the restrictions that used to be interesting to just be... annoying, at this point. So I want to make some changes to the species broadly speaking.
Now some of these I have posted, like here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61312846/
but I am going to go through all of them one at a time
Firstly I want to make drekir generally a bit smaller Not too much smaller! It is important to remember that people in my experience often think that drekir are smaller than they really are. Imua is about the size and weight of a full human, even though she's 4ft tall, she is still 12ft long. Arctic drekir are usually big enough to be comparable to the size of caribou.
Drekir are actually pretty big! But I want to shrink them down a bit.
The current plan is to make the average drek size (such as Imua) around 34-40 inches in height, the average small breed (Jat) around 28-32 inches in height, and larger breeds (Getterbet for example) around 42-48 inches in height. Puts them more on the smaller side, though they still are far from tiny. That would put Imua closer to the size and weight of a smaller Great Dane than what she currently is.
Now this height change will have some knock on effects to their interactions with metal, how much food they need to eat, etc. but not too much. Most the basic established lore should still apply here!
The breed rework I've already posted about So click the link above for more detail, but the long and short is to streamline the breeds out, simply establishing a temperate, tropical, arctic and alpine breed that have far more variation in the specific regions a population lives. I find the current stricter breed system both convoluted and restrictive. So the goal is to both simplify it so folks can understand it and make it more flexible so folks can have more fun designing their own unique populations and so I can do the same!
And also some social behavior changes not to den psychology, I think that shits great. But rather, I more want to push drekir to have a light parental drive to teach and raise their kids.
Still nothing compared to humans, I still want them to have a "we'll lay more" sort of outlook, but I don't want them to be downright neglectful of their offspring either. I am not sure where that balance is yet, but the idea is to have them have some emotional degree of attachment to raising their kids as a collective rather than any one of them.
That way they may dedicate at least some time to feeding, sheltering, and teaching their offspring than they currently do. Or at the very least it can become more culturally variable.
So that way kids have a bit more education when they grow up and when they set out on their own.
And there are some light NSFW changes Mostly in the drastic toning down of sex pheromones from the lore, I think I've written them and drawn them a bit too overboard in the NSFW comics, so I am gonna see about lightening the sheer amount of that. I won't get into detail here as thats probably going to need some new NSFW doodles. But thats how it goes.
[b]Next up are changes to drektech[/b]
Which is of course extremely culturally variable.
Now I want to keep the focus on a feeling of a "chalcolithic expanse", a blending of metal and stone, but I also admittingly feel a bit creatively pinned in by copper. I do still love copper! Best metal, but I want more creative flexibility in what metals look like and I want to make the complex rules around different magical bronzes, copper, iron, etc. more easily understandable to folks looking into the setting!
You will find a lot of these changes are about streamlining, fancy that
So I want to introduce a new, broad family of metals that, much like the manachert and spellglass that have appeared in the comics, is made by using real physical metal to lock the magical stãl (teal steel) into a physical state.
Essentially the manachert of metals, a Stabilized Stãl. The current name is a blend of haida words, Yatal, as the generic settingwide name.
Its a metal that is generally made via a process similar to the Sundering I've already talked about at length in other posts, and once properly made its a metal that can be cold hammered slowly, hot hammered quickly, or melted and casted into a mold to create a more complex shape. Likewise since its the stãl that is making the metal work, I am thinking of just making it so that any metal+mana can make some variation of Yatal metal. Aluminum, copper, iron. etc/
Now the metal isn't perfect, its still going to be a soft metal, with different qualities having a hardness somewhere between copper and wrought iron by comparison. But depending on how its made it can do a lot of things.
It can be a basic metal for tools, jewelry, cookware, etc. But it can also be used and elementized to make magical heating or cooling elements, to make acidic cutting tools for shaping hard materials, or even electrified weapons for shocking, or even serve with wind elementization to store mechanical energy. All in ways that are less restrictive and more magically focused than the current metallurgy of the Quiet Age, though it is still not necessary if not wanted.
The general blend between mana and metal is also 50/50, which is great for stretching out a supply of metal ore incredibly well! But the process for making Yatal metal is however that you cannot make it en masse and, like manachert, mana is a fickle resource even if technically abundant. So the average community may be limited in how much metal they can practically make, thus resulting in many turning to alternative materials to fill the gap.
Lastly, how you can get TF'd/Isekai'd into The Realm of the Quiet Age!
Portals!
One of my biggest sticking points with my own setting, as a guy who likes to see folks get scaled down a notch, is that The Pulse is a one time event. The Pulse is what makes the 1st generation of drekir from the peoples of the Americas... So they get tf'd into drekir and save some colonials who also get drekified
(see Imua)
that's it!
So I am thinking of adding an idea to Õndemic reality in which it opens portals in other parallel timelines and realities through which anyone can enter and get turned into a drek as well as trapped in Õndemic reality.
The general gist of the explanation is that, by its nature, Õndemic reality is unstable and aggressive, it swallows things and writhes in the cosmic weave. So often the sheer aggression of this reality causes it to push into other realities and timelines, thus creating portals through which things in those timelines and realities can traverse!
Of course those who do enter are going to be rapidly crushed by the Õndemic pressure of the Raddir and promptly turned into drekir, or draconically mutated. The force of the raddir is something that may have drowned gods under the weight of billions of gnashing maws, its not something most things can fight back against.
But it gives an avenue for more transformations either in the writings of folks who are writing stories in the setting or, you know, me! I like that!
That's all for now
I have work tomorrow so for now I must go to bed, I may elaborate more on this or save it for potential drawings. But I really want to push forward a lot of these changes to make the setting easier to understand, easier to write for, and just more creatively flexible. It's a case of change the setting or change the project with me at this point.
Sorry to hear you've been fighting burnout, tho.
Sometimes it's brief, sometimes it's heavy, and when it gets really heavy I usually pivot the setting, and there have been several of those points and this is just the most dramatic of those that have happened during the comics lifespan
Regarding the care of the children, that could be something that comes about in the natural course of evolution.
When the big change happened, most people were thrown into the very basics of survival, and the vast majority failed to make it. Those few who survived undoubtedly found themselves under assault from instinctual urges that were bred into them by the architects of their species, and denied their offspring as a coping mechanism, as it were.
"That's not my child, it's just a side effect of this horrible affliction, and I don't want to think about it!"
But as time passed, and the first peoples died out, it would have gradually occurred to the subsequent generations that parental care makes more sense than apathy. And since the new generations don't have the psychological, physical and spiritual trauma of having their world completely destroyed and upended, they wouldn't suffer the same apathy of their parents.
This brings us to Imua.
Imua was human only a few years ago, BUT...
...but...she came into an established society, where the inhabitants had learned how to survive sufficiently well, that they could be generous, kind and supportive. So rather than suffering trauma upon trauma, with no relief and no succor, Imua had friends and lovers to lean on for support. And because she got that support, her human understandings can flow freely into her new life. Especially since she's already been somewhat bothered by the fact that the Drekir don't care all that much as it is.
Ergo, it's not a big leap to want to behave more like a human, and actually care for her young.
So this is where the canonical changes can occur: Imua becomes a trend setter within Drekir society. Her ideas on parental care can be worked on with her own young, and then passed on via her children, but also taught to other tribes. Indeed, seeing as she doesn't have much in the way of crafting skill, something she does have, is knowledge. Perhaps not conscious, due to most of it being consumed, but enough to make a difference. That makes her valuable, and therefore, something to trade!
As for the pheromones, again, the Drekir are a manufactured species. They were designed to be horny by their creators, to ensure a steady supply of slave labor. But more importantly, when the Drekir were existing in a slave environment, they had plenty of food, shelter and other amenities that supported that level of fecundity. Now that they're no longer in a slave environment, it makes perfect sense that such high sex drives would start to taper off, especially as they learn to be more maternal.
So it's entirely reasonable to view the changes you desire, not as retcons, but as simple evolution.
The care of children is broadly focused more as a species wide thing than an imua specific thing, and even then I still wouldn't call it a "human" level of attention. This is something still above Imuas head
As for their nsfw changes, its less their libido is going down and more they don't produce pheromones that cause arousal feedback loops.
They're still horny, breedhappy dragons, its just now that's done through a more general since of a high libido and casual sex environment created by the low consequences for sex amongst drekir.
But you know me enough I think, so that being what I say is probably obvious.
i love that dreks are now as tall as yinglets, i'm sure that'll make for some fun crossover art
also appreciate the addition of a canon tf method, i'm sure a lot of folks will be glad to have that
and yep! added the tf method specifically for that reason!
Also education is one of the best things a social, sapient creature has access to
The greatest thing a social, sapient creature must have access to is cool metals, I cannot be convinced otherwise it is decided