Welcome to NYXTARA: A world building journey (part 1)

 

vibe i want to capture for nyxtara








As a writer, this is my favorite part. Telling the world about my story.

Fantasy writing is literally the best. Mostly because the research part of fantasy books is so minimal. You play the God here, you create a world of your own. Rules you wish existed, magic one could only hope was real, characters you create by breaking yourself into pieces. That is the beauty of fantasy writing.

 For me, I love kingdoms, castles, knights, magic but also murder. So, for my current WIP fantasy novella, I've created a dark kingdom wrapped in secrets. It is called Nyxtara (pretty cool, I think?) 

So, strap yourselves in, for here is a rant of my world-building journey for The Moon Kingdom: Nyxtara.

What it is

My fantasy novella features kingdoms based on celestial objects. The entire world is basically a cosmic representation on paper (as in the map of my world). The main nations that occupies the center of stage in the story is the Moon Kingdom, The Sun Dynasty, and The Star Radiation. Plus, of course, some background nations, seas and other elements.
The first part of this journey, I'll ramble only about Nyxtara, which is also where my story is set. I've spent so much time and love creating this kingdom, making the dynamics and the concept a bit unique from what's already out there, I really do hope you'll enjoy reading through the rant. 

For this nation I chose, already obvious from the start, the moon as a celestial object to represent. There is another queer name, beside The Moon Kingdom,  by which the neighboring kingdoms address them: The Land of the Lost Shadows.
The people here are notorious for selling their souls to the dark lord in exchange for turning themselves into ghouls. There is a great sense of fashion in the people, they mostly wear dark colored clothing; purple is generally in the season. 
But you won't miss dark figures in cloaks, looming around the corner, watching and waiting...... ;)

Vibe/atmosphere

My raw idea of the nation sounds like this.

A "picture perfect" kingdom but with its people, its queen, the princess, trying to cover the cracks beneath plastered smiles. The kingdom of the moon in my story embody chaos hidden behind perfectionism. 
The nation is recovering from a recent war and for the first time in forever, they're reaching out to their neighbors for help. 
Because of their uncanny atmosphere, dark rumors flying about and much too many secrets, the neighboring kingdoms were reluctant at first to step onto their land. However, a long friend finally takes the initiative and agree to join them for a treaty signing.

That friend is The Sun Dynasty: Caelumis, about which I'll talk more in part 2!

The central vibe is very much like the picture at the top of this article. It's ethereal but the fog of beauty blankets a tension that is slowly eating away Nyxtara. 
Here, the moon is up all through the day, or rather night, and the sun comes up later during the night, or rather the day. (lol I know it's whimsy)

Weather

Does it seem odd? I don't know but weather plays an important role in the construction of my kingdoms.

The snapshot above already describes the general weather in the best way. Fog is always in the season, and the sky looks ashy or even purple sometimes. The weather of a place highly determines the mood of the people living there, so for my notorious, devil-worshipping people, a dark, gloomy sky suits best. 

The wind blows with a slightly high velocity. It is chilly, piercing, but a source of huge comfort to the people living there. 
The color of the grass varies between midnight blue to the blackest of black. Even during the supposed daytime, everything reminds one of the night. 

History

Since my book trilogy is a novella, so the history lore of the nation is not too elaborate. For book one, the only major part of history captured is THE WAR OF THE IRON MAW.

This war happens five years before the current timeline of book one. It was fought between Nyxtara and The Star Radiation: Xermania(which I'll talk about in part 3!).
There is no actual war in the book, it only occupies the lore. 

What happens is this:
Crater, the Great Elf (from the land of the elves, The Aurora Commonwealth) makes a prophecy in the favor of Nyxtara. The Xermanians, who are the general enemy of literally everyone, gets a whiff of it and they try to steal it from the elf land. 

Stealing the prophecy would mean that the power and the reach of the words of Crater would weaken and die. Well, Nyxtara wouldn't let that happen, so they charge over with a war on Xermania and with Caelumis as their ally, they come out victorious.

Since then, Xermanians have been trying to sneak in and harm Nyxtara's infrastructure in some way or the other. But they've never really succeeded. 
Until now....?

Magic system

I'm at a fault here. 
As much exciting (and important) it is to create magic systems, I haven't really got a solid one for my world.

Just a few raw ideas.
People of Nyxtara chanel their magic from the moon, no shit. But it doesn't mean that they become totally vulnerable when the moon goes down. The moon is basically their ultimate power source and everybody is at their peak when it's out.

The foundation of magic in my world is- personality.
Every individual have got something related to their personality that only they can do.

Of course there are basic magic spells and stuff but personality magic is what also ranks the power system in the world.
Because it is something only they can do.
I'm afraid that's all I have up to this point, I know I got to work on it ASAP.


Geography

I do have a digital fantasy map for my world. I suppose, I should've put it here but it really needs much, much too much refinement. 

The geography of Nyxtara is nothing crazy.
It is a moderately levelled land, with mountains bordering its coast. The land of Nyxtara is a moon shaped island, with Vanora sea in the west (between the land of Caelumis) and the Empty sea in the east (between the land of Xermania).

The winds can get a little harsh in winters here. Rain starts pouring down out of nowhere, whenever rain feels like it.
The rest of the more elaborate details will be in the final refinement of the map.
(hopefully, i'm so lazy with these things.)


That's it...*sighes*

I am 100% sure that you 200% felt this was an amateurish article. I don't blame you.
It's not like I've pit so much effort into this, everything is very lazy and minimalistic. 
But it's enough for a NOVELLA with moderate world building, so you can't pin that on me.

I have nothing more to add.
Will take my leave now. heeeheeehehehe








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