wrinkled dream

Answers:

To all of the world building questions so far :) :

What are the creatures in Solstoria like, and what are some pros and cons to being a zero-grade or a Level X magic user? (On a personal note, ever since you RPed with me around a year ago, your works made me think seriously about my own stories and characters. I abandoned my story idea recently because it was too vast and all over the place, but I’m planning a new one with the same theme, and watching how you handle your amazing story makes me strive to become a good writer/artist like you! ;v;

First off! Thank you so much for your kind comment. ;_; I almost forgot to write this because I got so into writing about the story, so I’m so sorry about that. Most creatures in their world are similar to ours, but you’ll see some different ones in the story! There’s a lot of fairy-tale like creatures in the wayward lands, but the areas inhabited by humans are pretty normal.

Magic! 

The more magic you have, the more susceptible you are to magic.

The more magic you have, the less human you can feel.

And finally, the more magic you have, the more chance there is of a chain reaction breakdown of the body. Magic, in their world, is like this parasitic element. One entity of magic will try to greedily feed off another form of magic and, in the end, there’s cases where the mental state of a magician can aggravate magic and cause it to mutate. 

The classification system in St. Helena is in order to register everyone on scale of magic and also type of magic. It’s meant to protect the country and the citizens over all- in case of an act of crime with magic or the disappearance of a registered user or whatnot. Saintess Helena’s vision for the kingdom was to have a safe haven where people can understand each other and not fear the entities in them. Magic is a part of the world, they have to find a way to deal with it positively. (Some countries don’t.)

So Samantha, who has no magic, is a neutral entity in their world. She is entirely born human, with no affect of the surrounding world on her. She can still see ghosts and interact with them because they resonate with the world, but she isn’t affected by them (nor can harm them)

Is Samantha’s weapon a staff or a spear, or some kind of hybrid? Does it have a name?

It’s technically a spear with a mana stone head attached to it. Because Samantha’s a zero-grade human- (which, in their world, is a form of registration for the type of human they are. This means that Samantha, and perhaps less than 1% of the population itself, is immune to magic. Most people are born with magic, she is not. She is completely and utterly clean of it and thus can not be affected by it or haunted by ghosts or whatnot. )

Er, because Samantha’s a zero-grade, she’s given this special type of spear in order to help her combat anything magical. People with magic can damage other magical things, those without any can’t. She also has a mana-stone blade, but that’s her mother’s artifact.

Mana-stones are specialty items. They’re like the remnants of past monsters basically. They’re similar to Chrysm from Breath of Fire III, now that I think about it.

Samantha doesn’t often do a full on thrust-stab with the spear, though. She’s more of a sweeping, blunt hitting type of user. She’s kind of rough around the edges with the weapon, but it provides a lot of uses. It tends to shimmer and glow and can provide a light source if there’s magical beings nearby.

I know the relationship between Lawrence and Edel is something you’ve put a lot of thought into - what other important relationships are in your story? Are there other romantic connections you haven’t told us about yet? Spill the beans, sister!

There are a lot of relationships that blossom in the story, but there’s also some that have been established and have some sort of strange dealings going on to them. For example, it’s been rumored that Lawrence’s mother once had a boyfriend in her years living in the city before she ditched him for a much gentler, nicer farmer…

A young girl lives with her divorced father, a grand warrior from the land of Belacuna who gave up his ways of warrior-ing to lead a peaceful life with his daughter. Unfortunately, his ex-wife, a ruling Lord, probably would kill her husband for giving up his fiery passion of battle, but in the end their daughter’s safety is most important.

 A pirate captain is forced to keep a peace-keeper alive because well, letting a peace-keeper die is kind of frowned upon, even for a pirate. 

Nirinel’s secret love is for dragons.

A fiery Magic Knight fights to find her long lost Prince, who happens to be a multi-talented, but blind, individual roaming a country that he’s not familiar with. That’s okay! He takes things in stride. 

What was your inspiration for Solstoria? What was the very first idea/direction you had for the story before it developed into what it is now :>?

I have notes for this!

> Samantha’s original design

> Updated Designs (Like, from 2007) 1 2 3

> Samantha was a quiet knight who protected a princess named Sahara (Name changed : Oksana )

> Nirinel was the main character of her story. Nirinel was named after the root of Yggdrassil from one of my favorite fictional books. She was a quiet (what) magician who studied under a water elementalist. (She was also part furry)

> Oksana was a desert princess who dances- wait that’s still the same.

> Edel was a very ill-tempered and somewhat creepy alchemist who enjoyed being rude to others but was utterly terrified of Sambro.jpg (Lawrence) THIS IS NO LONGER HIS CHARACTER WHATSOEVER but it was to show that Lawrence put others in their place and perhaps wasn’t as nice as he seemed. Example

> Lawrence (Sambro.jpg) original file. He gets possessed by some crazy halloween spirit and well now what are you going to do but save him? (Name change for spirit : Calabasas > The Crow Prince (Royce) )

Concepts - 1 2 3 

- Originally this story was inspired because I love Halloween and never got to celebrate it in the Caribbean. I love the aspect of Mid-Western American culture and the beauty behind fall. Most of the story that takes place in the farmlands happens in Fall. (Example) <- first drawing of story lmao

I really started to get into working on the story in October of 2008 after a painchat with a couple of friends. I still have those pictures, dang.

It all rolled from there. I wanted to tell a story about a brother and sister and the world they live in. There’s no real, truly terrible villains because honestly- the world they live in doesn’t seem to be favorable to their kind as it is, but in their struggles they can learn to truly appreciate what they  have and love. 

I can’t think of any questions but I really like your characters and they’re really cute and I admire you vuv;; But I’m too shy to come of anon.

Thank you so much!! This is so sweet?!?! You’re so sweet!!!

I’m really glad you like them, I hope you’ll like the comic when it comes out, too!! ;x; 

what level is technology/industry at? Gunpowder and magic are there, but what else?

I want to honestly say 1940s. There’s iceboxes and refridgerators (home sets) but they’re definitely more of a 1950s era set of technology.

Fire arms are not commonly allowed by law in St. Helena, nor are they favored in the Holy Lands of Belacuna. Certain officers and magistrates carry fire arms and even personal vehicles (for work), but the public tends to rely on trolleys throughout the city. Outside of the city, trains are the main form of transportation (or horseback, if you’re a journeying kind of person.)

Almost all families have radios, televisions are very rare and small, but Nirinel owns one! She watches cheesy horror movies and terrible telenovelas on it. 

For the most part, technology’s kept on the downlow though. St. Helena in particular is known moreso as a medicinal country. It excels in the sciences and the art of hospital technology and services, so other technologies come second. 

Of all your characters, who is the hardest for you to write or develop? Who is the easiest? What makes these characters difficult or easy for you?

I have this weird problem where I write more about the characters I don’t understand well enough rather than the characters I do already know. For me, writing about Edel is the easiest. It took me a very long time to get his character down, which is why I started to write dialogue and little snippets to figure him out. I don’t really have a good grasp on boy characters, but working on this story has made me appreciate them a lot. 

Oksana is difficult for me to write about because she’s basically like my mom. She’s very energetic and wants to make friends, but she gets irrational when she’s angry. (I am glad right now my mom doesn’t read my tumblr. Disculpamé, ma!! ) Basically, I don’t write her because I feel I understand the character too well (as in, write about her outside of the story and stuff.)

Having three girls as main characters can be a bit of a challenge for me too, I know what their personalities are like (terribly so) but I always worry and double check that their speaking styles are completely different since they all come from really different backgrounds. I guess my biggest worry is group writing, making sure everyone has something unique about them and to keep in mind their cultural backgrounds. 

I remember in a stream you said there were no developed earth magic (as in dirt, rocks, what have you) practitioners. Is that because in the current iteration of the story there just aren’t any characters that have suitable personality, or is it just a still developing facet of the setting?

I think it’s a still developing facet of the story. There’s plenty of chance for that sort of element, but it really depends on the personality of the person. I need to make some chill earthy person who can totally cause earthquakes or something. I’m not sure how to handle earth magic yet is another thing, I think.

What are some of the popular (or unpopular!) myths, legends, superstitions, etc. in Solstoria?

Nirinel talks about one in story, about the sun tribe and how they used to live in the country of St. Helena’s lands before they mysteriously disappeared. People are pretty superstitious, mostly because ghosts do like to play tricks…

My favorite one is actually not a myth! In Spanish, there’s the saying ‘se casa la bruja’, which I’ve heard in Japanese and English too, but with different marriages, basically in Spanish we have a saying that when it rains when the sun is out, a witch gets married. That’s just something that happens naturally in their world, it’s because God’s crying tears of joy-! That’s what Lawrence’s mom would say, anyway.

Lawrence’s mom also talks abouts about how rays of light are god’s staircases to heaven. Lawrence’s grandfather was a priest before he passed away. Religion in their world is kind of interesting in it’s own, but I like some of these little aspects-!