The Mother's Garden
Scope
The motivation behind building The Mother's Garden
This world has been stewing in my head for years. I want to get it out there, actually work at it, and see if it can become something. Maybe entertain or inspire someone else.
One can only drink from the well of creativity so long before one feels the need to become part of it.
The goal of the project
Dream Case: Publishing, and making my living doing this instead of what I've been locked into.
Best Realistic Case: Creating a release valve for this bubbling cauldron in my head.
The Mother's Garden's Unique Selling point
It is mystical, but grounded on the character level. I feel that I can use this setting to talk about a lot of things that matter to me. Faith vs. Knowledge, Science vs. Magic, the different forms of love, etc. The people are bizarre looking, and they've returned to animism, but they are just people. And that's what makes it able to contain all these people problems and bring them out.
Theme
Genre
High fantasy blooming from a sci-fi dystopia
Reader Experience
Alien and magical, but also very real. I want the people in the world to feel like people living as best they can from the hand they were dealt. I want readers to look at these strange, twisted societies and see shadows of our own world. I want the magic to feel as real as the science, for the line between them to blur.
Reader Tone
Somewhere in the middle, it's not a one-palette world. Life isn't easy in most places, but it's a world of miracles all the same. There are some places where the shadows are longer (The Shining City and Chimeric Capitol jump out as examples), and there are some places where the sun banishes most of the shade (The Aviaries).
It's my hope that makes it feel more real and gives me more flexibility to write.
Recurring Themes
Duty/Destiny vs Choice
Science vs Faith
What It Means To Be A True King
Character Agency
The main characters have more agency than they believe they do. Their world is at a pivotal time period and almost the entire structure of it can change if the right people act.
However, most of the characters with the ability to change this world either feel like they don't, or that they shouldn't. The King, for example, is going to spend a lot of time ignoring the call to destiny because he simply believes it's not his place to be changing how the world works. He's an outsider, what right does he have to unify all these nations?
There's a caveat to this in that there's no character with enough agency to significantly change the Shining City- they are stagnant, they are stable, they have a powerful authoritarian system that has worked for hundreds if not thousands of years. Their threshhold for change is a LOT higher.
Focus
Drama
The people of the Shining City are being controlled by the lies of their authoritarian leaders. Most are unaware of the deception, but a small resistance group called the Blacklights are working in the shadows to spread the truth. They will soon begin making larger moves to disrupt the rule of the elite in the City.
Highest Emperor Khalid of the Chimearic Collective has brought many Nations to heel, forcing them into tribute agreements through one method or another. A few, including the Avians and the Hive, continue to resist. Only the Deepwater is completely unconcerned with his power.
For the first time ever, an avatar of Phoenix has been born. The avian boy, Valkan, has been celebrated and heralded as the savior of his people since he emerged from the egg. In private, however, he has admitted to his twin sister Aderyn that he feels no connection to Phoenix, despite the miracles he's been able to perform.
Anred Tirchanus is dead, wiped from the face of the Garden by a dreadful accident. His adventuring companions, cursed in the same stroke with unending life, have scattered to the winds. His final mission has gone unfulfilled, the temple and trials he prepared to find the True King dormant. His vision of a unified world lies all but beyond reach.
Not all Chimeara are part of the collective. Where else are they in the Garden, and how do they survive?
Those of good breeding are pressured to pass that on, regardless of their own life goals or who they may fall in love with. Especially bad for Avians, who may resonate with someone they mustn't.
The Wrokha dynasty has ruled the Masked Kingdom without interruption for over a millennium. Forces are in motion to contest this.
An epidemic of stillbirths has thinned the numbers of the Wolf clans and made multiple pregnancies a death sentence.
The Hive Queen's citizenship system is working- fewer drones are taken each generation. This will radically change the power dynamics for the Hive, both external and internal, within the next 50 years.