Argentii
6858, Late Spring
Scope
The motivation behind building Argentii
In order to build a better world, we have to first imagine it.
My goal with Argentii is to establish a fantasy setting, with new twists on the familiar fantasy ethnic tropes that remove racism and binary gender roles as conflict points. In short, everyone across Argentii is too busy with real problems (how to grow crops without rain, sheep out of the fence, making sure that an over-processed fuel cell doesn't explode in he middle of a flight) to be bothered with how people look or organize their family life.
I want my stories, and the world they're set in, to inspire people to dream of a better world, but also to do the work that is necessary to make it happen. Gene Roddenberry did it with Star Trek, once upon a time. Now, I want to do it with Argentii.
The goal of the project
I want to give my readers the sort of in-depth knowledge about my world that has made other settings -- such as Middle Earth and Faerun -- so lasting and beloved by their fans.
I want to tell stories that leave my audience with that magical feeling you can only get after you've encountered a truly gripping and compelling story. One that changes something inside of you, that shifts how you see yourself, and how you see the world around you.
Argentii's Unique Selling point
The cultural tug-of-war between Agromancy and Technomancy -- a metaphor for tradition vs. progress -- has been raging for 6,850 years. There is no part of the culture, economics, or politics within the Eastern Union and the Western Empire that goes untouched by it. Often, this influence is invisible, the way that one doesn't think of the source of the food for the laborers that make the bolts that hold one's chair together. But it is always there.
Through all of the growing, evolving relationship between the 'mancies, the people have forgotten that there is a cycle to the world, and now the dragons are due to return from their millenias-long absence, an arrival that has always wreaked havoc across Argentii.
Theme
Genre
Horror, especially ghosts and unexplained sightings of sea monsters.
Magipunk, a steampunk-like genre where the source of heat is provided by a magical interaction known as Technoalchemy.
Reader Experience
I want my world to feel dark and inviting, like the mysterious allure of a haunted ruin, drawing you in to find the little gems of untold stories hiding in the shadows.
It should feel familiar in a way that you can't quite place, like a whispered melody only heard in a dream long ago, yet still resonates somehow in pieces of music we hear every day.
Everything should feel slightly spooky, even if it's just in the long shadows of the low sun, or hiding just around the corner at the edges of the story. There should always be some element of something going on just out of perception of the characters. Think of it as an entire world of vaguely haunted houses, creepy landmarks, and long-lost burial grounds.
Reader Tone
My world is not without it's bright and sunny places, but overall tends toward secrets and mysteries. On the scale of Star Trek, it's more Deep Space Nine as opposed to Next Generation.
Because scribes, bards, and other literate characters are a cornerstone of both society and economy, there is a quiet undercurrent of the educated being superior to the intellectually lazy; a knowledge that because the information is there to be had, anyone who doesn't have it is somehow less. This is reflected not so much in derision, but in a quiet sort of 'oh, bless' pity.
Recurring Themes
Airship travel vs. seaship travel, and the inherent dangers of both.
The ethics of harvesting the blood necessary to make the Technomaniacal Contraptions that fuel modern conveniences such as airships and food chillers.
The effect of greed not only on the environment, but on the people trapped within the system.
The impossible gap between the past and the now, how the 'truth' of history is determined, and the importance of accepting all the things we can never know.
Focus
This work by Haly, the Moonlight Bard/J.M. Dearinger is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License.
Unless credited otherwise, all art was made by Haly, the Moonlight Bard/J.M. Dearinger using Canva Pro;
all maps were made by Haly, the Moonlight Bard/J.M. Dearinger using Inkarnate Pro.
