Guardiansverse Primer
Dec. 16th, 2030 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guardiansverseWelcome to my not!canon!
The Guardiansverse is a low fantasy world with a late 18th/early 19th century Europe (but not Victoriana/steampunk!) flavour. Main themes are politics and war, power and agency, belonging, community, and group identity. Usual iddy tropes include competence/power kink and power games, loyalty, hurt/comfort, and scenery/food porn. The main fantasy element is a form of magic drawn from the collective power of human souls linked together in socio-cultural and political communities, channeled by individuals who have undergone a transformative experience: the eponymous Guardians. Most important of those is the Land's Own Guardian, the linchpin of the soul-web.
Current verse stories take place in the country of Hyem, and follow the reprecussions of a popular revolution that had reshaped the roughly feudal, agrarian society; and the events set into motion by two Land's Own Guardians: revolutionary leader and warmonger Festus Detrich, and his peacemaking successor Amika Stattenholme. A third main player is the nationless Guardian and mercenary Saul Samaren, who plays a key part in both their lives.
The stories in the masterpost are listed chronologically, but the best way to start is with one of the verse's two longer pieces. <Ghosts of the Borderland (28k words, complete) follows Amika and Samaren as they struggle to survive a winter wilderness and work out a disastrous political incident, while also working out their own complex relationship; it stands well as an introduction to the verse. The Soldier's Apprentice (165k words, writing complete, posting in progress) takes place two years after the revolution and covers Detrich's fraught mentorship of young Samaren and (eventually) the events that bound Samaren and Amika together. The other snippets posted in the journal largely take place around either of those stories and use characters introduced in them.
Stories masterpost
Further worldbuilding information
The Guardiansverse is a low fantasy world with a late 18th/early 19th century Europe (but not Victoriana/steampunk!) flavour. Main themes are politics and war, power and agency, belonging, community, and group identity. Usual iddy tropes include competence/power kink and power games, loyalty, hurt/comfort, and scenery/food porn. The main fantasy element is a form of magic drawn from the collective power of human souls linked together in socio-cultural and political communities, channeled by individuals who have undergone a transformative experience: the eponymous Guardians. Most important of those is the Land's Own Guardian, the linchpin of the soul-web.
Current verse stories take place in the country of Hyem, and follow the reprecussions of a popular revolution that had reshaped the roughly feudal, agrarian society; and the events set into motion by two Land's Own Guardians: revolutionary leader and warmonger Festus Detrich, and his peacemaking successor Amika Stattenholme. A third main player is the nationless Guardian and mercenary Saul Samaren, who plays a key part in both their lives.
The stories in the masterpost are listed chronologically, but the best way to start is with one of the verse's two longer pieces. <Ghosts of the Borderland (28k words, complete) follows Amika and Samaren as they struggle to survive a winter wilderness and work out a disastrous political incident, while also working out their own complex relationship; it stands well as an introduction to the verse. The Soldier's Apprentice (165k words, writing complete, posting in progress) takes place two years after the revolution and covers Detrich's fraught mentorship of young Samaren and (eventually) the events that bound Samaren and Amika together. The other snippets posted in the journal largely take place around either of those stories and use characters introduced in them.
Stories masterpost
Further worldbuilding information
