Fantasy Skypirates of the Pink Pearl LORE

[. D O V E]

Library of the Pink Pearl​

 

[. D O V E]

The world: GAIA​

The World Map:

Spoiler: Click here

Note: The world map is occassionally updated. As you can see it's incomplete.

The planet, commonly known as called Gaia, is majorly composed of water with five acknowledged continents. The world's lands are categorized into two: terraferma and skyland. Terraferma refers to lands on the surface uncovered by water, drawn on the map using black ink, while skyland refers to lands floating high up in the sky, outlined with white ink. The planet has a warm climate at the equator and a cold one at the top and bottom extremities.

 

[. D O V E]

LOCATIONS​

• Therone
• Perelates

• 
  The Royal dominion of Therone is situated at the center of world, which is why it's commonly called the Heart of Gaia. Therone's form of government is a diarchy, currently headed by the royal couple King and Queen Emhyr.
  
  Official records state that the sovereign was founded by the Propagator, commonly known as the patron deity and progenitor of all eldritchkind. Legends said that the land was originally beneath the sea and was home to evil, slug-like creatures gunning for world domination until the Propagator used its divine power to raise the land to the surface. After purging the rest of the sea slugs, the Propagator raised the central portion of Therone further up the sky so it could stay there and govern over its new sovereignty. However, as beings from all over Gaia poured into Therone, the Propagator grew weary of leading alone. So, it split itself into pieces which became the first eldritches, marking the birth of the eldritchkind. Whether this was true or simply a tale to keep the eldritch-family Emhyrs on the throne is a matter of debate up to this day.
  
  Regardless, Therone has always been depicted as a welcoming country, a safe haven for all types of creatures. Thanks to its geographical location, Theronian enjoys a balanced climate suited for almost all types of beings. The dominion is majorly a terraferma except for the skyland hovering at its center where the palace and noble houses reside.
  
  In terms of economy, Therone is arguably the wealthiest domain in Gaia since it's the central trading hub. As a result, they're allied to almost all countries in the world. Aside from trading, the country also specialize in magitech, and is rather fond of grandiose architecture and vessels.
  
• 
  Perelates is the home of the less honest populace of Gaia, especially pirates. Both locals and visitors should always be mindful of their belongings when traversing the small, arid land. It's a widely known fact that criminals from all over the world usually find refuge in Perelates, often times bringing their illegal businesses with them.
  
  The place is governed by a guild called Crimson Talons, more specifically their leader Fundanus Havocwill who rule rather leniently. So long as someone can pay the imposed tax, which is usually sky high, then they will be untouched and remain under the protection of the warrior guild. There are rumors that the guild conducts less legal businesses in and out of the country, but there are no concrete evidence for the other nations to move against Perelates. Numerous countries, however, have expressed their great displeasure over the island's leniency when it comes to illicit behaviors.
  
  Perelates specialize in creating ships with devastating firepower.
  

 

[. D O V E]

Factions​

• Order of the Monochrome Wings
• The Crimson Talons

• 
  The Order of the Monochrome Wings is probably the single most powerful organizations around that wields absolutely no political power. This order of knight’s errant does have a loose structure, but for the most part each knight acts as an individual unit. Anyone may become a knight, although there is an entrance process and a few rules. First and crucially, one must be an adherent to Karrisane, or adhere to her when you join in special cases. You must honor her ways, and respect death and the dead. You must honor the cycles and neither seek nor hold political power over others outside of emergencies. Above all you must seek to do good and keep people free. Besides these rules you can find Monochrome knights almost anywhere in almost any line of work. The only real sure way to tell a Monochrome knight is by a tattoo somewhere on their person of an iridescent pair of wings, one black, one white. People have tried to copy these tattoos for one reason or another, and it always goes very poorly.
  
  Generally if you want to find a Knight and don’t have access to any of the proper channels, look for the one quietly doing good in the background, or for the heroes. Knights tend to be on the powerful side, and if the full Order was ever to come together they would be an imposing force. They have only done so a few times in their millennia old history, but rumour has it that the channels of communication necessary remain in place. There are other rumours, of gravekeeper rites and gravekeeper powers, but all that is truly known is that the Knights always give the fallen funeral rites, regardless of who they may be.
  
  Written by: SweetRose
  
• 
  The Crimson Talons is a warrior guild which holds the power in Perelate. They are rumored to be involved in various illegal activities such as smuggling, piracy, and even abduction of important personnels in and out of the island. They are currently led by Fundanus Havocwill, a mighty stone giant, who subsequently pulls the strings around Perelates. The guild imposes tax upon the island's citizens which have been said to be inflating with each passing year. In return, the guild promises to keep them safe from the many crooks in the place's every nook and corner. Some said they also extort taxes from criminals to protect them from foreign authorities.
  
  Regardless, the Crimson Talons is not a guild to be trifled with. They own several high-powered ships with magically-imbued canons said to be capable of annihilating Therone royal ships in one shot. Whether this is true or not remains a mystery, and perhaps it would be in everybody's best interest if we never find out.
  

 

[. D O V E]

Beastiary​

• Skuagon

• 
  The Skuagons are four-legged, eyeless creatures with pitch-black fur and a sizeable mouth rowed with serrated teeth. While these creatures lack any optical organs, they are extremely sensitive to vibrations and their tongue can detect magical properties. While they can and will eat virtually everything, their favorite snack are definitely items embued with magic.
  
  Fascinatingly enough, the lining of their oral cavity and digestive tracts are capable of absorbing minor spells. Subsequently, the Skuagon will display a trait in relation to the nature of the spell. For example: A Skuagon which ingested a low-level fireball will exhibit fire-breathing ability. On the other hand, consumption of high-tier enchantments will lead to the Skuagon's death by combustion.
  
  Skuagons vary diversely in size. Most of them are small about the size of common rabbits, but they are capable of growing to the size of a horse if left alone. They are commonly regarded as parasites, although there are some who are starting to recognize their potential value in the field of anti-magic.
  
  They are found virtually everywhere.
  

 

[. D O V E]

DIVINITIES​

• The Goddess of the Seas
• The Goddess of Death and Rebirth
• Zhaognnosh the Propagator

• 
  
  
  The Goddess of the Seas is one of the oldest beings on Gaia, one of the primordial forces that made it up. She is both an immense piece of the world, and one of the most unfathomably powerful beings within it. She has no name, and needs no name for she is the ocean itself, and the personification of it. Cults have attempted to Name her before, and those cults were swept away. This included one in an inland desert atop a mountain. She is an exception by way of sheer force of self to the usual rules of the divine. She is worshipped as her own nature, and those who do not abide by that are ignored or destroyed.
  
  However, for the same reason she stands so far above most living things, she also stands aloof from them. She is the sea in all it’s respects, and that includes its combination of fae capriciousness, and utter uncaring vastness. She has left her mark on lives and cultures uncountable, but very, very few have ever left a mark on her. Similarly, she defined much of the culture of Gaia for millenia untold. It was perhaps the closest she ever came to being in any way defined by worship, because to sail her seas was to place yourself upon her altar and pray. She defined much of the coastal and intercontinental culture by her sheer wildness. The lucky made their fortunes on the waves, and the unlucky lost theirs, but nobody could be lucky forever. The few who earned some level of her blessing or the support of her children in the Selkie were the only ones who completely reliably survived.
  
  There are no paladins, no clerics, and temples to the Goddess of the Seas. Her waters are her place of worship, and all who abide by them worship in a way. She does not demand obeisance, only respect and sacrifice of a kind. There is no power that can be taken from her, and she grants none. There are certain magic users who can in some small part channel the Oceans might, but they are exceedingly rare, of unknown origin, and reliably monstrously powerful.
  
  Within the past couple centuries her influence has fallen off as the routes of commerce and movement took to the air, but her power has not waned. She does as she has for all of history, exists as her own power and by her own power. The only thing that has shifted is that personal attention from the Goddess of the Oceans, while still vanishingly rare, seems to occur more frequently to those still upon her waves.
  
  Written by: SweetRose
  
• 
  Karrisane the Raven Queen is a goddess of Death, and Rebirth. Endings and beginnings, and the endless cycle between the two. She is death's cold grasp, and its warm embrace. One wing black as shadow, the impression of cold abyss, one wing the golden warmth of peaceful passage. She appears as a black suited woman with a terrible sound of great wings beating. Her voice is abyss, wings beating, and the voice of the dead multitude. It is not an easy thing for a mortal to bear, but her eyes are said to be impossible to gaze upon. She is honored by respecting the dead and the cyclical nature of life. She is also an active Goddess and care is best taken when invoking her.
  
  Written by: SweetRose
  
• 
  Zhaognnosh, or commonly known as the Propagator, is said to be the primogenitor of all eldritchkind. It is commonly depicted as a dark blob with countless appendages protruding all over its body and a giant eye, with two fusing pupils, at its central portion. Often times, its images show the Theronian crown floating above its head. The Propagator is also rarely depicted in a humanoid form, which is typically a blindfolded and hooded figure with four arms.
  
  The Propagator was said to have originated from a different existence altogether. While it isn't linked to Gaia's creation, it is recognized to have played a vital part in shaping civilization as we know it today. The Propagator honors knowledge above all; making it the patron deity of those who seek it such as scholars, historians, and educators. Several books, called the Zhaogonian Tomes, are artifacts which are widely claimed to be written by the Propagator itself. The books explore all sorts of topic ranging from the composition of the world to magic to different realms of existence. Its rumored that there are more than a dozen of them, but only two have been found and confirmed so far. They currently sit in Therone's royal library.
  
  The Propagator's most popular legend is the Theronian Redemption. To summarize: long ago, the center of the world was dominated by underwater slugs who thirst for world domination. The Propagator, using its divine power, raised the land and exposed the slugs to air, killing them instantly. It then proceeded to rule over the new superficial dominion after elevating its central portion to a skyland. Afterwards, it split itself into pieces which grew to become the eldritchkind of today. As expected, many critics are questioning the validity of the legend due to lack of evidence of the said "evil, sea slugs". It is even theorized that all of these are just made-up tales to keep the Eldritches on the Theronian throne. The Eldritch monarchs, however, have retorted with a simple statement: "We wouldn't use damn mollusks if we made this story up!"
  

 

[SweetRose]

Divinities & Legends
(Dove, organize this)
​

• The Selkie
• Syzhara, the Walker of Sea Graves

• 
  The Selkie are not a primordial race, but they are of the first generation thereafter. They have a long, long history, but it is not exactly rich. This isn’t for a lack of influence, but more for a lack of contiguous civilization. Like their progenitor, the Goddess of the Oceans, they are utterly wild, and distinctly powerful, although most of the Selkie operate on a much more normal scale. Worth noting in that regard is that the Selkie largely do not age, and the first Selkie and their children still live. The first two generations of Selkie are third and fourth generation after primordial, and as such are incredibly powerful. They are not gods nor anywhere near, but they are old and canny beings. By and large there are three relevant generations of Selkie. The first were the first children of the Goddess of the Sea herself, and a creature of the land. They were not shapechangers so much as they were shapeless, wild by nature and lack of nurture. They formed the basis of the Selkies societies in their wake. Having no parents for most of their first centuries of existence, and later only having the Goddess of the Oceans, did not an ordered society make. The fundamental cornerstones of Selkie society is freedom, individualism, exploration, and simultaneous bonedeep unquestionable loyalty. The Selkie almost always exist in either small family groups or as lone wolves, but if they catch a single hint of another of their kind at risk they will arrive. This isn’t even a tradition so much as it is just a basic truth of their nature. When they were born they started together, and for centuries they were alone with only each-other for company in the vast ocean.
  
  To understand what the Selkie have become now is to understand the second generation. As the first generation moved through the waves with their wild natures they took on many forms, most adapted for the environment they occupied. From those forms came their children, each losing much of their parent’s shapelessness, although all Selkie are capable of some degree of shapeshifting. The second generation of Selkie were the first of modern Selkie-kind. More than that they were also the precursors to many of the oceanic wildlife in an indirect way. When the Goddess of the Oceans took more notice of the world around her and decided she wished to fill her waters with life as the land and air had, she took inspiration from her first children. From sharks, to whales, to squid, to octopi, to even small fish, many had their roots in a particular type of second generation Selkie. Many more evolved from those starting points or were developed as offshoots.
  
  The third generation is where modern Selkie-kind truly came to be, and are generally regarded to still be. Their race has grown and changed somewhat over the years, but modern Selkie are largely still considered to be third generation. Third generation Selkie are generally made by second generation Selkies or by groups of third generation Selkie, and are usually based on the second generation. They retain some shapeshifting ability, but generally only between a few concrete forms, depending on their origins and nature. Many third generation Selkie either started with or picked up a land-walker form to allow their wandering to roam wider. Oftentimes there will be between forms as well, either a mix of two or more, or a centaur sort of arrangement. A between form might be anything from a relatively humanoid girl with shark teeth, scales and tail, to a being with a humanoid upper-half and squid lower half, to something barely humanoid at all. Worth noting that humanoid can also refer to anything from humans to demons. There are also between forms with no trace of any of the bipedal races, instead being between multiple oceanic creatures, but those Selkie are rarely, if ever, seen outside of the depths. Third generation Selkies are in a sense noticeably less limited that second, as second generation Selkies can usually only shapeshift to make changes within their natures, but third generation Selkie will have a few baseline forms that they can move between and change, and can add more.
  
  
• 
  NAME: Syzhara
  NICKNAME/ALIAS: She Who Walks the Graves of the Sea, The Walker of Sea Graves, Sailor’s Last Love, She Who Loved and Lost the Sea.
  AGE: Thousands of years old, but for much of that she wasn’t quite her own person. She retired a few years ago and has taken on a much more normal life, along with losing her immortality and most of her power.
  GENDER: Female
  RACE: She was a primordial mountain troll first, the Prime Selkie second, a Ghost third, a Reaper fourth, and a Sea Walker for most of her existence. Now she is something else entirely, a simple strange existence of stone and sea, death-touched, and yet now gifted the kindness of flesh and softness. She is the Prime Selkie, but she bears almost no resemblance to her children.
  BACKSTORY: Syzhara is an ancient creature, but much of her existence was spent in large part as a force of nature. To understand who she is and how she became what she was, and how she retired, requires starting from the beginning. Long, long, long ago she was born to a fairly new race that called the mountains and deep places their home. The seas were even wilder then, ever eating away at the land as the land itself shifted and flowed. As such her people hated the sea with an almost religious fervor, as it forced their movements by consuming their homes. Syzhara though, she loved the sea with an unfathomable depth. Something about it’s nature even then as it sought to consume and destroy her people drew her to it.
  
  She did something then that would be impossible now. Using her own primordial, malleable nature, and the raw magic and sheer Power of the ocean she managed to make herself into something new. She made herself a Selkie, the first of their kind, and from the sea she made children, shaping stone with the power of the sea into a new race. In the end she was cut down by the nature of her position when her people discovered what she had become. Trapped between the wrathful mountains and the uncaring power of the ocean. If she had simply ventured deeper she could perhaps have survived, but she had sat on the borders of the sea all these years yearning for an invitation. So she died there, struck down and falling upon the shore of the sea as her children scattered into the wild ocean.
  
  For a time she was simply a ghost, the first of many who would wander the shores of the seas mourning for their lost love. She was one of the few who mourned for the sea herself, but while she was the first she would not be the last. She persisted for a time, before death herself, the Lady of Monochrome Wings, came to see the rare lingering spirit, as in those days few ever lingered. She found curiosity in this strange spirit, trapped by an absolute love of a wild thing that never even took the time to notice her existence. Karrisane claimed her for herself, to become one of her reapers, although this was not without ulterior motive. You see the ocean, wild and mighty a Goddess as she was, had refused Death entrance. Instead those few who died in the depths simply wandered them, lost in the darkness. In these primordial days death allowed herself pettiness, and so stole that which belonged to the sea, even if the sea hadn’t herself noticed.
  
  For a time she was simply that, a reaper. She found the dead on the lands, and brought them where they should be. She was an odd reaper, a certain trace of the sea ever-lingering around her, but she did her job and did it well. It was only much later that things changed. The sea began to calm, only slightly, but enough that she and the land were no longer eternally at war and the oceans no longer sought to destroy everything they could reach. It was then as the ocean began to consider children of her own, to traverse the world within her like the lands children traversed her, that she found she already had a few. Selkies, a strange, already old race that had managed to survive the truly wild seas. They had adapted in a number of ways, and their various breeds where what many of the first sea creatures were later made from. First however the sea found herself perplexed. Where had these creatures come from, and what had instilled them with such a deep affinity with her when she had been so opposed to all around her. It was only when she found the oldest, Syzharas children, that she learned of Syzhara herself. She found a strange beauty in the tale she heard. Some strange being that had loved her enough to bear her children before she had even really cared about the world around her.
  
  It was only when the oceans learned of where Syzhara had gone that she knew true wrath. Before had been impersonal fae wildness, but here Death herself had made it personal. So started a fight of sorts, behind the scenes of the world. Ultimately it only lasted briefly, but the sea began to expand her boundaries in which she refused Death her power, and in turn Karrisane kept Syzhara ever at work, and far away from the sea she still loved. It came to a head when Syzhara herself found time to see the sea, and found the boundaries of its power deep into expanded shores. Syzhara watched the sea strain against borders she no longer raged against, and managed to call a parley. The Goddesses of the seas and Death met, and so an accord was made. Karrisane would return the oceans first adherent, and in turn the ocean would allow Syzhara to continue her work below the seas.
  
  Syzhara’s tragedy did not end there however. You see she was still death-touched, and the sea still disliked Death. Moreso she was bound to fulfill her new purpose above all, and in the years the sea had been wild and the years until Death was allowed true access, countless souls had perished there. Even as strong as Syzhara was, she was only one. For a time she was making progress, and then many races began to venture to the sea, and so deaths within the sea outpaced her. For millennia she was trapped in a tragic farce, walking the depths of the sea she so loved, but unable to truly reach her, bound as she was to her work and Death. It was only when the many races of the land began to venture instead into the air that she began again to make progress. Even as much as she had grown in power and efficiency it still took her many years to complete her work. Eventually though, she did. She worked and worked, and for a moment the sea was empty of restless souls. Freed from her bindings, she was unsure what to do. She had spent so unfathomably long yearning with no idea what came next. The oceans found her then, and Syzhara came the closest she ever had to an end to her eternal yearning. It was then that she was drawn away.
  
  You see, becoming a Reaper had give her one last accursed gift. When Reapers finish out their contracts they are given one last mercy. They are returned to life as they once were. More than that they are bound from their old work, which for most simply forestalls use of their old powers, and walking the old routes of Death. For her however her job had been to walk the sea, and so she cannot by her own will venture into the ocean. Again she is trapped, yearning for that which she can never reach.
  
  GOAL: The ocean, now and forever.