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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

THE FALCON AND THE KITE This is an excerpt of the myth that'll run parallel to the story. Second draft is almost complete! #amwriting #talesfromkaratera

In the beginning, there was only Chaos and dark waters. There were no men, no gods, no demons. Then Helbus, He-Who-Bore-The-World, came and descended into the depths to create this land of Karatera. He said, “By raising this earth, I have banished the seas of Chaos. I shall become the land, and man will reap the food of my body.” Then, He set to creating the three great gods who would rule man, woman and beast alike in his name.

First, Helbus removed His right eye and placed it into the sky, where it became Ansiliras and the Sun. “I am Ansiliras,” He declared, “The Falcon, He-Who-Crowns-All-Kings. You shall follow me, and I shall give you sunlight and fire.” And so people followed Him.

Then, Helbus removed His left eye, and placed it opposite to the Sun, where it became Chakbet and the Moon. “I am Chakbet,” She declared, “The Kite, She-Who-Shields-The-Weak. You shall follow me, and I shall protect you from all that is evil.” And so people followed Her.

Finally, Helbus removed His tooth and crushed it, where it became Tirike and the storms. “I am Tirike,” He declared, “The Serpent, He-Who-Comes-Without-Call. You shall follow me, and I shall rain lightning and death upon your enemies.” And so people followed Him.

Helbus looked upon His children and He saw that they were good. “Remember,” He said, “it is your sacred task to protect mortals from Chaos. Never forget that, my last wish.” And then He fell into a great slumber, in which He still sleeps to this day.

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

Each layer has its own architectural styles. The lower two layers (the Serpent Ring and the Wyvern Ring just above it) opt for lumpy, hollowed-out stone dwellings, built to evoke a cave-like dragon's den. Sort of like Kandovan village in Iran, but at a far larger scale. (2/5)

Kandovan village in Iran's East Azerbaijan Province. The photo depicts dozens of cone-shaped volcanic ash formations in the hills of Iran, which have been hollowed out to serve as homes. These formations range from one to two storeys high.

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

#AprilWorldbuilders 5 Vehr-Hor consists of five semicircular tiers, built on top of one another and into the side of the mountain, connected in the middle by a giant staircase leading all the way to the top (kind of like Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings). (1/5)

"Minas Tirith over the Pelennor Fields" by Ray Minn, showing a multi-layered white city built into the side of a mountain, overlooking some green farmland and villages.

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

#Febchantment 28 This snippet is from SPIRITBINDERS, as Opeia the wizard reveals exactly what she can do with her magic.

Opeia turned away to lower her veil and take another sip of wine. Chloe almost forgot to look away, so fascinated she was with this woman. “How do wizards differ, domina?” she asked.
“Well, for a start, there’s no risk of you losing your magic to the whims of gods or nature,” Opeia chuckled. “We keep our spells in books and scrolls, and even if you somehow lose your spellbook, you don’t suddenly forget how to spiritbind. And the magics you can learn … We wizards will never learn how to heal or command plants, but we can lift objects with our minds, disguise our faces with those of others, conjure invisible servants that obey our commands … even turn ourselves invisible, for a time.”
The wizard leant back and snapped her fingers. Perfect images of herself appeared to her right and her left, identical in every way, right down to the chair. “My specialty is illusions,” Opeia said proudly. Her voice seemed to echo from her two doppelgangers. “Creating images of things that are not there. I could be in the other room, speaking to you through a magic image, and you wouldn’t know the difference. Except then I wouldn’t be enjoying this lovely meal.” She reached over and plucked one of the berries from the basket to make her point. Her mirror duplicates merely phased through it, then dissipated into mist.

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

#Febchantment 21 In this snippet, Chloe sees her first real application of magic - manifesting the infinite power of the spirits to pour a cup of wine.

The interior of the hut was far finer than the outside had suggested. An exquisite cedar table sat in the centre upon a rug of sky blue and emerald green, patterned with rectangular spirals and blooming flowers. An iron stove stood dark and imposing, with herbs, mushrooms, and dried meats hanging from the ceiling over a stone counter. The room was divided by a wood-and-paper screen painted with depictions of satyrs and ventyrs, dryads and naiads – nature sprites of all kinds engaged in mischief and carnal acts.

Opeia stepped around the table, holding out the rabbits and letting them go, whereupon they moved on their own accord to the countertop. A knife floated up from the counter to skin them in midair. Chloe stared at the scene with her mouth agape, while Opeia sat down at the table calmly, as if all of this was no more extraordinary than the wind. At a gesture from the woman, Chloe took a seat, drawing out the bread from her basket and breaking it in half. As she did, Opeia flicked her wrist and uttered a quick, airy word. The doors of a nearby cupboard flew open at the command, and from it a silver flagon and two crystal goblets flew onto the table, seemingly conducted by Opeia’s delicate finger movements. The flagon filled both cups with a richly red wine without spilling a drop, then they all floated gently to the table, one cup placed before either of them.

“So,” Opeia said with directness, “what is it you want to learn about wizardry, girl?”

Chloe barely heard her, staring in blank shock at the goblet. She uses her magic like it’s nothing to her! Realising she was being spoken to, she cleared her throat and answered, “Well … if it pleases you, domina, I want to know how your magic is different from druidic and priestly magics.”

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

#Febchantment 7 So this is a scene from my upcoming short story MAKINA (which I still need to rewrite). Main character Rashan shows off his magic skills to a guy he's set to working for him.

Rashan stepped towards the block, taking a piece of soft clay from the pouch on his belt. He pressed it into the stone with the palm of his hand and began an incantation in sharp, harsh Dethek. Instantly, he felt one of the mental locks that kept his bound spirits in check vanish, releasing the force it had kept in place. His robes billowed with wind that wasn’t there as ancient spirits flowed through his body like icy water, and it was only his continued incantation that kept them from spilling out. He felt the clay burrow deep into the block, and he heard a deep grinding sound as the stone began to reshape to his will. The corners softened, the edges retracted, and the granite moulded itself like clay in a potter’s hands. What Rashan didn’t need sloughed off onto the floor, where it instantly hardened and hit the ground with a hefty thud. He pulled his hand back when the spell was complete, looking up to see a vaguely humanoid stone statue standing four heads taller than him, its pose stoic, its features indistinct.

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

#DetailedSFFIntros @miwwdu-sitsom.bsky.social WEEK 5 For this final week, I'm gonna post up a little excerpt of my upcoming short story, A MATTER OF FAITH. I don't think I've posted this up here yet, so this should be a fresh read for everyone!

The khenedrin arrived the very next week, settling in a camp about an hour’s ride from the village. Bellona departed as soon as she heard, quickly donning her lamellar and her buckling her sword belt before setting off on her mare. Nadërin accompanied her on camelback, armed with his scimitar and armoured in leather underneath his pale linen cloak, riding in sullen silence. The sun was blazing high in the sky by the time they left, and Bellona was sweating a river under the armour. A thick cotton tunic and leather trousers separated the scorching metal from her skin, but it did little to assist with the heat.

She did her best to ignore her discomfort as they came upon the khenedrin camp. The trail they’d been following curved around a hill and down into a shallow decline where the nomads had set up. Their camp consisted of a single tent raised beside a trickling stream, woven with goat hair and large enough to hold twenty people. Unlit pole-torches stood in a circle around the camp, with a smoking fire pit in the centre. Beyond the camp, the Violet Sands stretched endlessly to the south, the dunes glistening with iridescent colours.

There were fifteen khenedrin by Bellona’s count, most of them sitting around the fire pit, unsurprised by her and Nadërin’s arrival. They were lithe of body, all of them, with skin that shone burnt copper, light bronze and dark amber beneath the pink cotton robes and headwraps that they wore. The lobes of their ears hung down past their jaws, pointed like daggers and pierced with tiny quartz gemstones. Most of them were shorter than her, but only by a head or so, and they all sported hair that shone like molten gold. They were beautiful.

Two khenedrin stood out beyond the others. A man and a woman, they sat upon a pair of flat rocks away from the main group, dressed in completely different clothes. The woman wore a loose blue dress tied by a long length of rope, jet black hair flowing down her shoulders as she played a mournful tune on a reed flute. The man, whose camel-hide armour was adorned with pieces of horn and bone, sat cross-legged with his eyes closed, a quartz circlet upon his head. Some kind of khenedrin priest, perhaps.

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

#DetailedSFFIntros @miwwdu-sitsom.bsky.social WEEK 4 I’ll try to encapsulate each of my stories inside 150 or so words. Of the four here, only the first three have been published (though A MATTER OF FAITH is currently being beta-read). The others are either still in 1st draft or yet to be written.

1. A SOLDIER’S LOT
Fayiz, a mercenary in service to the Redblood Mercenary company, is sent to scout out an approaching army of dragonkin, along with a nervous new recruit named Bulus. They come across the army, seeing that it is no mere skirmish force, but a proper invasion. Unsettled, but undeterred, they set about documenting the army long into the day, noting numbers, equipment, and the scale colours of the dragonkin. Soon, night begins to fall, and with it rise the horrors that lurk within the dark. Fayiz and Bulus set up camp, but the shrieks of something in the skies above cause Bulus to lose his nerve and insist on moving camp. Fayiz, frustrated, reluctantly agrees, but moving may just cause them more trouble than it’s worth …

2. SPIRITBINDERS
This story opens with Chloe, a young girl from the Coastlands, arriving at the home of a witch living at the edge of her village, by the name of Opeia. Opeia reveals herself to be a wizard, not a witch, and demands to know Chloe’s intentions. Chloe reveals that she had been chosen for her town’s mist trial – a ritual to reveal those who might have a gift for magical spiritbinder. She explains to Opeia that her gifts were such that she was offered a place in the priesthood of the First Eye, and in the order of druids who protect the natural world. However, Chloe wants to know more about the different forms of magic before she makes any sort of decision, and the only magic she doesn’t yet know about is wizardry. Impressed by Chloe’s tenacity, Opeia hears her out, as Chloe recounts her encounter with the priest and the druid before her …

3. CLANLESS
This story begins with the rockscale dragonkin Dumu being recruited into the Bluebane Alliance, along with his close friends Yhirax and Theera, and a good many other dragonkin. Theera is joining to free the slaves being held by the Redbloods, while Yhirax, as a clanless dragonkin bastard, is more interested in joining the powerful warrior clan Ntharl. Dumu, yet unsure what he really wants, goes along with the both of them out of fear of being left alone in their home village. Despite good first impressions with a feast to celebrate the new recruits, training quickly proves to be brutal and hard under their instructor, Ntharl Graax. But as Dumu starts to get overwhelmed, Graax’s strange and beautiful daughter, the spider witch Nis, takes an inexplicable interest in him, pulling Dumu closer to Clan Ntharl even as Yhirax and Theera start to drift away from him …

4. A MATTER OF FAITH
Bellona Domitia, a templar in service to the church of the First Eye, is assigned as the protector of the quiet desert village of Taenöra. Immediately dissatisfied with both the quaintness of the village, and the fact that the villagers’ practices and religions don’t align with those of the church, Bellona enlists Nadërin, head of the town militia, to help her bring Taenöra in line with the faith. Yet the village priest, an eccentric old man by the name of Prokopios, immediately proves difficult to work with, insistent on preserving the traditions of the village, and Bellona grows frustrated. Things come to a head after a young boy gets badly hurt, and Bellona is forced to hide the fact that she doesn’t have the healing touch possessed by all true templars, further driving a wedge between her and the village …

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

I've only got the protagonists of stories 1-5 figured out, the others are kind of up in the air until I start writing the stories properly. I usually write from the perspective of "nobodies" within the world of Karatera, people who are just trying to make ends meet in a dangerous world. (2/2)

BELLONA (human, f): From 4. A MATTER OF FAITH (upcoming), Bellona is a trained templar of Angelos, assigned to the sworn protector of the village of Taenöra. Haughty, uncompromising, and blindly faithful in the First Eye, she’s the very definition of a zealot.
Bellona’s goal in the story is to bring Taenöra back in line, excising any “foreign” faiths and reinstating First Eye worship in the village. This brings her into conflict with the villagers, who would much rather continue practicing the old religion, to her frustration and outrage.
(Bellona’s my first attempt at creating an unlikeable protagonist, inspired by the way medieval Christians sort of “overrode” traditional pagan faiths across Europe. Part of the appeal with her is watching her dig her grave with her own bad decisions.)

RASHAN (human with khorgul blood, m): From 5. MAKINA (upcoming), Rashan is a greater adept in the sinister cabal of necromancers known as the Grey Cabal. He’s a dangerous mix of cunning, ambition, and emotional detachment that make him a force to be reckoned with.
Rashan is assigned to the town of Musaaf to organise the defence against the Bluebanes, in form of mysterious weapons known as “makina”. However, his own personal ambitions may just get in the way of the task his masters assigned to him …
(Rashan is going to be the first protagonist in this series who is unarguably evil, as well as the first who’s in a position of power and prestige. I want him to feel different from the others, slimy and dangerous in equal measure.)

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

#DetailedSFFIntros @miwwdu-sitsom.bsky.social WEEK 3 The nature of my project means that each story has a different protagonist, so I’ll just go over each one in turn and give a brief description of each. (1/2)

FAYIZ (human, m): From 1. A SOLDIER’S LOT, Fayiz is a member of the Redblood Mercenary Company. Cynical and pragmatic, Fayiz’s career as a mercenary has given him an appropriately bleak outlook on life, and he gets easily frustrated by the foolishness of others.
His goal in the story is to scout out the Bluebane movements approaching the town of Hrulgut, which he wants to do as quickly and quietly as possible, but the nervous antics of the new recruit he’s been saddled with may throw a stone into his plans …
(Conceptually, Fayiz doesn’t have a lot going for him. He’s primarily just my vessel to introduce the world of Karatera with, representing the major themes of the story I want to play with.)

CHLOE (human, f): From 2. SPIRITBINDERS, Chloe is a teenage girl from the Coastlands, born with a uniquely strong bond to the spirits. She’s a bit naïve, but she’s fiercely strong-willed and more mature than her age would have you think.
During the story, Chloe is told to use her gifts to practice spiritbinding, as three different magicians try to coerce her into becoming their apprentice. It’s up to her to decide which branch of spiritbinding to pursue, or indeed whether to pursue it at all.
(Chloe’s story is all about introducing how magic works in the world of Karatera. I figured exploring it from the lens of a character who WANTS to know how magic works was the best way to do that.)

DUMU (dragonkin, m): From 3. CLANLESS, Dumu is a newly initiated member of the Bluebane Alliance. He’s tall and strong, even by dragonkin standards, yet he’s a bit timid and immature, and doesn’t really want to hurt anybody.
Dumu’s story is all about doubt – doubting what he wants, doubting the intentions of his superiors, even doubting his own friends. He doesn’t really know what he wants to be, and his unconscious goal throughout CLANLESS is figuring that out.
(CLANLESS is the proper introduction to how the Bluebanes work as a faction, and how dragonkin operate as a society. Spoiler warning, it ain’t great.)

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

And finally, here's a rough map of Karatera I made a while ago. It could probably use some cleaning up, but it's what I use when planning out my stories.

A labelled map of Karatera, with the Coastlands in the north, the Violet Sands in the west, the Red Sands in the east, and the Black River/Dragonspine in the south.

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

#DetailedSFFIntros Week 2 I’m gonna go ahead and do this one as an image, because this is going to be a very long thread otherwise. And I'm gonna divide it into different subjects as well: @miwwdu-sitsom.bsky.social

REGIONS
Karatera is, for the most part, a great desert split into four major regions by a three-pronged mountain range known as the Scar. These regions are:
The BLACK RIVER in the south, a region inspired by ancient Egypt where traditions thousands of years old are still upheld by the priests of the Old Faith. The eponymous Black River gives the region life, and the land is dotted with ruins of a long-dead kingdom of half-beast kings. Further south is the Dragonspine, a mountain range home to the reptilian dragonkin.
The RED SANDS in the east, a dry stony desert of rock, rubble and dust, all the colour of rust. Slavery is rife in this region, and the lords who rule it are lords of iron, gold and precious clean water. These lands are also home to the khorguls, a tribal people that possess indigo skin and bestial tusks, who have been pushed to the fringes by the humans who’ve dominated their sands.
The VIOLET SANDS in the west, a great sweeping desert of sparkling, iridescent sand dunes. Magic runs wild and untamed here, creating mind-bending illusions, pillars of evermelting ice, and great storms of chaos. The mystical khenedrin nomads, denoted by their long pointed earlobes, make their home in these sands.
The COASTLANDS in the north, the crown jewel of Karatera, where water runs free and the land is as green as can be. This verdant land, marked by flowing blue rivers, opens up to the Shattered Sea, and is the nexus for people travelling to the lands east and west. However, it also hides a dark past, with twisted ruins that hide demons and shadows from a sundered kingdom …

PEOPLE
Karatera is home to many different people and cultures, some of the most well-known of which include:
HUMANS, who form the bulk of Karatera’s population. Humans are slightly stronger here than in real life, I want to say, but not to any significant degree, though they’re just as varied.
DRAGONKIN, reptilian humanoids who make their home in the dragonspine mountains. They’re strong, confident, and have a reputation for arrogance, and are renowned for their ability to unleash fire, poison, acid or even lightning from their maws.
KHENEDRIN, mystical, lean, dark-skinned nomads of the Violet Sands, instantly recognised by their long, pointed earlobes. They’re said to be deeply attuned to the spirits, deeper than any other people in the land.
KHORGULS, a tribal people from the Red Sands with bruise-coloured skin, strong statures and sharp tusks. They are usually regarded as primitive barbarians, when they are in fact a deeply subjugated people who’ve been pushed to the fringes of their own land by humankind.

CHITNIDS, a diminutive race of insectoids who look for all the world like giant ants who stood up and learned how to talk. They’re generally friendly and communitive, living in underground colonies in the hills and the sands.
AZAELITES, a people born with a tinge of demonic blood that gives them horns, rough skin and glowing eyes. Anyone can be born as an azaelite, though it’s generally a rare occurrence, and a life as one of these “half-demons” tends to be either nasty or short.
MULUK’HAJAR, or mountainfolk, a squat people of slate skin, thick beards, and an art for stonecraft and metalwork. They once ruled over the Red Sands as a tyrannical empire built on the backs of slaves, but centuries later, they’ve found themselves to be a dying and subjugated race.

FACTIONS

THE PROVIDENCE OF THE FIRST EYE: The once-ruling faction of Karatera, Providence is a holy kingdom ruled by King Ergon Caspio II and dedicated to an all-powerful god known as the First Eye. A blending between ancient Rome and Greece and the Eastern Orthodox church, with a small dash of the Byzantines, Providence is rightly regarded as one of the strongest factions in Karatera.
Providence is a lawfully minded faction, with a strong emphasis on community bonds, but beneath it all is a hard expectation that the only gods you can worship, are the First Eye and its Three Saints. They possess some of the strongest clerical spiritbinders in the land, and Providence’s professional army is renowned for its indomitable defence.
It used to be that Providence ruled the entirety of Karatera, but decades of political negligence has reduced Providence’s effectual control to just the Coastlands. With this war, the king intends to reclaim what he sees as rightfully his.
THE BLUEBANE ALLIANCE: This faction is an alliance between the ancient noble houses of the Black River, and the great dragonkin clans of the Dragonspine, all united under the mighty blue-scaled storm dragon King Gharamax. Untamed and ferocious, this faction has taken the Black River out from Providence’s thumb and intends to spread its dominion across Karatera.
Though it’s technically an alliance, the Bluebanes are more draconic than not. The dragonkin clans are the sole commanders of the Bluebane military, and while the humans are free to run their cities the way they see fit, the sheer power of the dragonkin practically make them the masters of the Black River.
The greatest strengths of the Bluebanes are threefold. First, their sheer numbers almost make up for their lack of cohesion and discipline, making them an overwhelming horde on the battlefield. Secondly, dragonkin are uniquely talented at calling spirits, and their sorcerers are particularly fierce. And thirdly, of course, they have dragons.

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Game Jam Day 8: Got distracted by work and forgot to make posts for the December Worldbuilders thing. But, on the positive side, the game's coming along quite nicely! Still haven't got actual combat yet, I'll try to do that tomorrow. Should be easier now that the UI's mostly finished. #GameDev

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

#writinglifemonthly 23 Brett's Demon Cycle is something I found with a similar world to my Karatera setting, where demons come out at night and also it's set in a desert. I think. ...I haven't actually read the books yet.

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

#writinglifemonthly 18 I keep my pile on my bookshelf, just oriented in a different way to make me go "oh right I'm meant to be reading these".

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

#writinglifemonthly 12 This passage is from A Matter of Faith, one of my current WIPs. This particular part is describing the khenedrin desert people, who are basically desert elves. Basically I just want to know how interesting they sound by the description I've written.

There were fifteen khenedrin, most of them sitting around the fire pit, watching them without a hint of surprise. Their beauty rendered Bellona speechless. They were lithe of body, all of them, with skin that shone burnt copper, light bronze and dark amber. The lobes of their ears hung down past their jaws, pointed like daggers and pierced with tiny quartz gemstones. Most of them were shorter than her, but only by a head or so, and they all sported hair that shone like molten gold.

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

#writinglifemonthly 11 This is generally how I edit my drafts, with a notebook filled with other people's feedback beside me for easy reference. This one is for A Matter of Faith, my fourth short story, which went through three wildly different drafts before I finally showed it to people.

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

This is kind of covered in the last snippet, when Nis heals Dumu's wounds. I do have the second time they touch, though. #writinglifemonthly #writingcommunity

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Their first words to each other, right after Dumu gets whacked in the face with a training axe. #writingcommunity #writinglifemonthly

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Sprouting Nonsense @sproutingnonsense.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Introducing Nis, the "love interest" of Clanless (she's a dragon-person, for context, all the characters in this story are) #writingcommunity #writinglifemonthly

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