(Best viewed on desktop, desktop mode or with a tablet!) |
Emynea
207 AE
Scope
The motivation behind building Emynea
I created this world during a very difficult time in my life. It started as a journal where I wrote about my life through a magical lens. That world became my escape and that escape produced a story as I navigated Tia through her world. However, as this story evolved I don't think I could say Tia is completely like me anymore--she took on a life of her own! These origins are why I decided Accia would be like Earth if these elements came to life and reshaped our own world. This world would be ours, the landscape, history and cultures reshaped by the wild beauty of elemental magic and millions of years. I will continue to juggle what I will and won't pull over from reality, taking inspiration from legends, historical figures and actual real world cultures from different eras. However, the beauty and awe of this richly magical world that I myself wanted to experience will still be important and I want others to be able to enjoy that world too. Both with my magic system and all else I will aim to make it to where anyone can say, I'd like my character to have this magic and that background, to be able to insert themselves too! Let others become lost in Accia and let their imagination run with it. And of course, I want the emotional and social struggles of my characters to be relatable and to reach out to others going through extreme loneliness or trauma so they know there are others like them out there.
The goal of the project
I am funneling a lot of my own traumas into the characters and having them go through a journey to reach out and help each other but also for them to get to really feel and experience complex emotions and events. I also am going to be putting a lot of societal commentary in here and want to make really diverse and representative characters. But I do hope one day this can become a novel, webcomic, animation, just some kind of media that brings it to life for people. At the same time, I might try and make it into a homebrew campaign so people can experience it that way too! We'll see where it goes.
Emynea's Unique Selling point
The world itself is going to be intensely magical, it is an immense part of life, but also realistic about both the beauty and danger. Magic is a part of the landscape, part of the people, part of the culture. Every aspect. Emynea is going to be an incredible and extreme landscape because the elements themselves came to life and reshaped everything, experimented and left a mark that made each area amazing--and of course left the people living there with a way to survive or even thrive there. Then, the peoples get to mix and interact and, since Tia is such an adaptable character, despite everything else happening around her, she is the kind of person to throw herself into nature and enjoy it as thoroughly and intensely as possible. This world, despite all the terrible machinations of people, is her shelter and her comfort. I want people to want to lose themselves in it or wish they could see it for real. And of course, I want people to be able to imagine 'their character' if they were there.
I also think this story will be unique in that it is a shadow of our own world and societies have come and gone from the world, even more modern ones than our own. I like the idea of a story that exposes the possibility that history and human progress aren't linear and we aren't always more advanced than previous civilizations. The seemingly random technologies that have survived over the ages or those which the elements reintroduced to society after purges. What they consider strange, ancient music or art are from our society. And of course, the fun of watching humanity continue to progress into modernity and beyond while still remaining fantasy.
Theme
Genre
Mostly fantasy with a hard magic system. In the beginning, this world is going to be your typical fantasy setting but as the story continues, Emynea will modernize and I hope to give it somewhat of a sci-fi fantasy feel further in. I think it could be framed as a romantic fantasy, taking a lot of similirities and definitely having some focus on the emotional experiences of the characters. However, I still see it as a dark fantasy at the same time with harsh, violent consequences, "darker" characters the more the story progresses and devoid of a safety net for the main character. She is not strong or talented in the beginning. Her first action scene she nearly dies, unable to defend herself. I think it will be an interesting mix, shocking readers more when stark realities barge into the romantic fantasy patterns and emotions.
Starting out, this is pre-monotheistic religion taking over kind of era. Different people and different cultures have their own ideas and beliefs religiously and mythology wise, only some mentions of what will imitate Christianity societally and really impact those kind of changes. The main character is really long lived so there will be a shifting of that kind of genre as it goes. The magic, of course, will remain but have some of its own changes that has to do with the plot when humanity overpopulates.
There is of course going to be romance going on, our characters are teenagers at first and overall are still human, but that will go along with the rest of the plot and while its important to the characters (and anyone shipping them) it isn't the focus as a genre. This is a mature story with violence, gore swearing and the like. I am still on the fence on how much of the character's romantic interactions will make it into the book. I suppose I'll make up my mind as I go.
Reader Experience
Accia is meant to show how beautiful and cathartic nature can be while also letting people get fully lost and wrapped up in the incredible magic. At the same time, I want to show how terrible and messy people and society can be. Culture and society can be both incredible to experience and have beauty, while still being absolutely horrifying and having structures that are messed up. Show how even the most amazing places and people can be terrible especially to anyone who is different. All of it really. Show how all of these interact and how it CAN be better with the right focus, but it isn't easy. I also want people to see through the story that there is always someone, obvious or in the background, messing up other peoples lives and ruining the beauty for their own gain or their own ambitions. That they depend on most people just trying to live their lives with least resistance, not questioning their norms. I hope the book will be a good mix of magic, beauty and excitement while still making the story harsh, complicated and messy. And of course I want readers to enjoy the characters, adding a bit of fun where needed.
Reader Tone
This world is going to be wonderous and incredibly beautiful but I'm also going to be realistic of how brutally damaging or even lethal these forces can be, especially in this kind of world. Show that some people let their ambition, greed or weird beliefs hurt everyone else for their own gain. It even begins with the main character getting blasted off a mountain and almost dying in her first action scene. If Duff didn't happen to find her she definitely would've died. Then the story shifts to them training in a military/school environment. And of course there is the stark reality of the Minx family history. Tia had all of 17 aunts and uncles, and because of the campaign they fought in and their aerial magic, only Tia's father and his youngest sister, who didn't fight in this campaign, survived service. So both bright in a number of ways but starkly realistic of how dangerous this magic can be and how complicated people can be. Tia won't be this perfect, talented character. She will struggle and fail many times, her immortality acting as both a safety net and her curse when she is at her lowest point.
Recurring Themes
It's a bit difficult for me to pick out three specific recurring themes, I will likely need to come back and add them as I go.
There will certainly be a lot of symbolism using the elements themselves. In how the real, physical balance between these forces in nature can be seen within people and society in small and large scales. This can be within a person, their own inner balance of emotions, actions and personality or it can represent mechanisms within society itself. A lot of thought has been put into both the Erlithmanil and their aspects in regards to this and these themes will shine through subtly as the story unfolds. The idea of balance will be tossed around throughout the series as well and the elements and the balance of nature tie into this quite a bit.
The theme that darkness isn't necessarily evil will be present throughout the series, particularly using Tia and Zalikar. Light is often automatically placed as good and desirable symbolically especially when it comes to the main character wheras darkness is almost always used to represent evil and antagonists. In this story, while not immediately apparent, will flip this around completely. Zalikar will seem the stereotypical, evil force seeking to corrupt Tia and how he is actually strengthening and validating her won't be immediately obvious. Many of the emotions and actions and desires associated with darkness and considered undesirable traits in a hero will occur with Tia and the importance and function of these will be redeemed. Tia's darkness is valid and necessary and Zalikar, aside from pursuing his own ends, helps Tia to pursue and claim what she deserves after what she suffers. Emotions related to darkness (fear, despair, secrecy and other less obvious emotions related to shadow and void) play a role in this story and the flawed traits of a pure-hearted protagonist in most stories will contrast Tia's journey.
Character Agency
The main character has a lot going on, ability wise, and she has a lot of things that she pays for it with. Tia's story is going to be plagued by loss, betrayal and emotional struggle. But all of the characters are going to have the ability to make huge contributions and changes to events, whether they realize that or not. Obviously there are characters who grew up being groomed for positions of power and whose whole focus is that. However, there are also going to be a number of people, seeming oddballs and nobodies, who are going to play pivotal roles despite unassuming backgrounds. And even among those, some will return back home to their normal life the SECOND they are given the option to do so. I want to show, even as the eras pass by in this story, how much people really can affect their world ad how it moves forward. Still, it is a very "character driven" plot and planning process. Some major events have already been planned for a long time but that doesn't mean other new characters can't add their own flavor to these events or following these events.
Focus
Drama
|
All images were created by me using AI generator, is my own art or a combination of the two!
(AI generator is wombo dream.ai) |