Literature / Elancia Chronicles

Characters (left to right): Lyrikos, Aria, Verse, Xan, Basil, Cecelia, Karina

Elancia Chronicles is a novel/ concept album series by Leilani Rae Wilson (AKA Woofle), who is also known for composing indie game soundtracks such as Starbuster, Miasma Caves, Rusty Seas, Leilani's Island, and most notably: the Freedom Planet series. There are currently three installments in the Elancia Chronicles series: Symphony of Shifting Tides (2019), Symphony of Hunted Truths (2020), Symphony of Awakened Gods (2021), and an upcoming fourth part expected to release in late 2024. The series has been Illustrated by NightlineZ (Cover art), and Renz (interior art). The story follows Versearrun "Verse" Erin Kira McDowell: a confused, amnesiac, cowardly, transgender Fox-Kin as her life of piracy gets ripped from under her feet when an ominous phenomenon called the "Sea Death" forces her to abandon her home and all of her belongings. She, and her tough, muscle-bound Rabbit-Kin friend Xan Gryphon get stranded in the land of Celestion: an archaic, ultra-conservative, strictly theocratic nation who is losing a war against their more advanced neighbours from Dascillia. After losing any hope of escaping the continent, Verse and Xan must use their wits to survive this hostile environment. They reluctantly meet new friends: Cecelia Fey Burnello - An annoying, stinky, and awkward Bat-Kin, Basil Cyrus Rathborne VII- A disgraced, drunk Celestionese Bat-Kin knight from a legendary line of heroes, and Tisu Karina Frjaru - A tall, muscular, stoic Dog-Kin knight, who is Basil's Guardian. Together, they must take on larger-than life threats, as they learn to look past eachother's flaws & solve their own personal problems, all while their world is on the verge of ending. When Verse goes to sleep, she visits another older Fox-Kin name Lyrikos, who claims to be her sister. Here, in the land of dreams, Verse is free to act as her true self without fear of judgement from the scary world outside.

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Works in the Elancia Chronicles series:

• Symphony Of Shifting Tides
• Symphony Of Hunted Truths
• Symphony Of Awakened Gods

and a currently unreleased fourth installment

Elancia Chronicles contains examples of:

• The Ageless: Gods, and their descendents cannot die from age-related causes, but they are still vulnerable to violence.
• A.K.A.-47: The Weston Man Ender F-45 very closely resembles the real-world Colt Single Action Army revolver (if we go by the Shifting Tides cover art design).
• The Alcoholic: Basil, and to a lesser extent, Verse.
• Alternative Calendar: The story starts in the year 1878 of the Elian calendar, and some of it's months are: 'St.Fabricio', 'St. Sandalio', 'St. Mae', and 'St. Aubergine'.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Verse and Lyrikos both have a blueish-purple fur colour, and Xan's fur is dyed green.
• Anti-Hero: Verse, as she has little respect for the law, often commits crimes, has a bad attitude, and is reluctant to help people unless there is a financial incentive to do so.
  Verse: Yeah, no. I'm a piece of shit, and I'm willing to prove that
• Anti-Magical Faction: The Elian religion considers magic use to be "Devil Worship", and it is outlawed in all Elia-dominated regions, where there is a Ban on Magic.
• Art Shift: The interior art has changed quite a bit over the course of the series, too. Shifting Tides alone has 4 different art-styles:
  • 1: sketchy linework as seen when Verse sees Basil & Karina for the first time
  • 2: slightly less sketchy art as seen in flashbacks to Verse's past
  • 3: Art with smoother linework & colouring (or shading, as the books are printed in black & white), used in most illustrations for the first two books
  • 4: Art with smooth linework & no colouring (seen exclusively in the epilogue)
  • Hunted Truths drops styles 1 & 2 entirely, and Awakened Gods has only style 4, with no colouring. Most likely due to the coloured art not printing very well in black & white.
• Asteroid Thicket: Planet Elancia has an asteroid belt which it's inhabitants call the "Sky-Ring".
• Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: Verse normally wears a small vest under her coat, which leaves her midriff exposed, she does this to look & feel more feminine while "boymoding".
  • most easily seen on the cover art of Symphony Of Hunted Truths.
• Beast Man: The Beast-Kin are anthropomorphic animals of various types. Out of the main five characters from "Shifting Tides", Verse is a Fox-Kin, Xan is Rabbit-Kin, Cecelia and Basil are both Bat-Kin, and Karina is Dog-Kin.
• Berserk Button: Never call Verse a Motherfucker or similar. Otherwise you can expect a greivous beating courtesy of her monsterous side.
  Un-named Street-Fighter Go and fuck your mother
  Verse Alright Cunt I'll send you to meet her first
• Big Bad: Syrrko, who is the Leader of the Aegiys and wants to abduct Verse in order to do lab experiments on her because of her connection to the goddess Lamenth.
• Boomerang Bigot: Despite being high-ranking officers who serve Elia- A Goddess who despises & outlaws magic use, Chaz & Aliester are both secretly highly-skilled Ice magicians. It is later revealed that neither of them really believed in Elia's gospel, and served the Holy Army purely to defend the innocent.
  • Basil's homosexuality, which he often indulges in while still considering it sinful.
  • Every Elian Beast-Kin, since they worship a goddess who considers them inherently sinful, & inferior to humans
• Cast Full of Gay: All five main characters from "Shifting Tides" (and numerous other side characters) fall somewhere on the LGBT+ spectrum.
• Cross Dresser: Verse being Trans (but presenting as male for much of the story), takes up every opportunity to dress as a woman. Even going as far as switching disguises with Cecelia.
  Xan Okay, better question. How come every time we go into disguise, you dress up as a chick? This goes all the way back to when we was pirates. It’s kind of weird, dude.
• Cute Witch: Cecelia- a 16 year old Bat-Kin Savant. She is extremely talented with magic at the cost of having a childish personality and poor social skills
• Depending on the Artist: There are several notable differences between the character designs in NightlineZ's cover & Renz's interior artworks: The former tends to draw Beast-Kin with longer, animal-like snouts, while the latter gives them somewhat flatter, more humanoid faces. The colouring is different too, as Renz gives Verse a bluish-purple fur colour, while NightlineZ draws her with a more magenta-ish tone. Renz's art tends to match more closely with the book's descriptions.
• Dream Land: Verse often has lucid dreams in which she gains a female body, and meets with her older sister Lyrikos at her childhood homeland of Qaimusu. Things that happen in the dream land can have effects in the real world, too.
• The End of the World as We Know It: When element-controlling Gods die in Elancia Chronicles without passing on their powers, this can cause a Natural Disaster Cascade as there is nobody to keep the elements in check. In the story, many gods are waging war, and so if too many of them die, this could cause a world-ending crisis. This is already in effect at the start of the story as oceans go flat, lose their wind and tide, and eventually turn to sand in a process called "Sea Death".
• Enemy Within: After Fate infects Verse with his powers, he lives on in Verse's dreams, where he and an evil incarnation of Verse from a bad future try to seduce her into embracing her monstrous side.
• Family Theme Naming: Verse, and many of her relatives have music-themed names, such as Aria, Lyrikos, Cadence and Melody.
• Fantastic Racism: Common real-world animal stereotypes are considered racist among Beast-Kin. This includes things like Skunks being stinky, or Foxes being sneaky. It's also something of a running joke in the series.
  Verse: Orrite, wot’s your idea, ‘en? You gonna dig a ‘ole or somethin’?
  Karina: [flatly] That’s racist
  • The religion of Elianism considers Beast-Kin to be inherently sinful, and mandates that they reject their animalistic traits and act more human.
• Fantasy Counterpart Religion: Elianism closely resembles a fantasy version of Christianity, and the Aegiys Pantheon resembles various Pagan religions.
• Fantasy World Map: Books 2 & 3 contain a map of the Kerlynzian region, while Book 1 does have an official map of East Basker◊, but not illustrated in the book itself.
• Fetish: Verse is a foot fetishist and finds few things more pleasurable than having her feet rubbed. She is also never seen wearing fully-enclosed footwear, having at least her heels & toes exposed at all times.
• Foreign-Looking Font: Characters speaking or writing in the Kerlynzian language have their own special font to represent the language, which was custom made for the books. It's entirely made of straight lines, giving it a "Runic" appearance.
• Funetik Aksent: Several characters speak in heavy, phonetically-spelled accents, including Verse.
• Furry Confusion: Anthropomorphic animals exist alongside regular versions of them. Anthros are called "Beast-Kin", while regular animals are called "Non-Sent" (sent is short for sentient). They Co-exist with Humans, and other fantastic races such as Orcs, Chimera and Elves.
• Handy Feet: Characters sometimes use their feet as if they were hands, Like Sir Patchmore, who takes Verse's cigarette that she offered with his feet.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Xan insists that he is totally into chicks, and says "No Homo" any time he and Verse get a little too close. Spoiler alert: he homo.
• Imported Alien Phlebotinum: Star Junk is the name given to the mysterious high-tech debris that falls from the sky. It is collected and studied by "Star Junkers".
• Inconsistent Episode Lengths: The page count between each book varies wildly: Shifting Tides is 477 pages long, Hunted Truths is drastically shorter, being little over half the length at just 281 pages, while Awakened Gods, is back up to 416 pages long.
  • This goes for the accompanying concept albums, too, with Shifting Tides being a staggering 8 1/4 hours long, Hunted Truths being around 3 3/4 hours long, and Awakened Gods being 4 3/4 hours long. Just imagine what a physical release of the soundtracks would be like...
• Inevitably Broken Rule: Just about every time Lyrikos tells Verse not to do something or go somewhere, (before their reunion) She will. Often because she has no other choice.
• Interspecies Romance: Almost every romantic relationship depicted is between two members of different species, Despite having extra trouble conceiving children.
• Lady of War: Karina and Verse. Both of whom are very capable fighters. Karina tends to use tonfas or rifles, while Verse prefers hand-to-hand or her Man Ender revolver.
• Military Mage: Aegiys-worshipping armies enlist Magicians into their ranks, along with conventional soldiers.
• Musical Theme Naming: Verse and the McDowell family all have music-themed names. They also tend to be skilled musicians, with Verse playing her signature Guitar (among other instruments), Aria being a skilled Pianist, and Lyrikos being a Violinist. This is likely due to the Author also being a musician herself.
• Mysterious Past: Verse starts the series being very amnesiac, and has huge chunks of her memories missing, which she spends much of the story trying to recover. This is because Lyrikos took away many of her most traumatic memories, to keep Verse safe
• Off-Model: Verse's Man-Ender revolver never looks exactly the same between Renz's illustrations, with variations in barrel length, bayonet shape, hammer shape, chamber size, iron sights, trigger guard shape & position, and engravings.
• Physical God: Most Gods in Elancia live alongside mortals, although usually in remote temples . They can cross-breed with mortals, too. Despite this, many characters don't believe in Gods existing.
• Pronoun Trouble: Verse being transgender, has her pronouns switch between he/him and she/her depending on how she's currently presenting. The blurbs on the back of each book use they/them pronouns for her.
  • Xan criticizes Fate for playing the "Pronoun Game", when he alludes to an unspecified "they"
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: Stella Astria is Verse's ex girlfriend and former captain aboard the 'She-Wolf' who becomes a recurring minor antagonist throughout the series. She is reckless, bigoted, short-tempered and has a tendency to say things she shouldn't.
• Queer Media: Elancia Chronicles has a plethora of LGBT characters. Verse's transition and exploration of her identity is one of the series' main themes.
• Schizo Tech: This series has many characters still using swords, even when repeating firearms are common, and also hi-tech cybernetic robots.
  • Subverted in that the robots fell from space, and Elancians have little understanding of how they work.
• Single-Issue Wonk: Cecelia. If someone says the wrong thing in a discussion about religion, expect an angry rant about how Elia is evil.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Xan always wears his coats with only one sleeve on, and the other hanging behind his back.
• Steampunk: The setting of Elancia has a similar level of technology to the real-world mid-19th Century. It features inventions such as Revolvers, Lever-Action Rifles, Factories, Trains, and Steamboats.
• Stripperiffic: Karina and Crei both wear what appears to be Holy Army-issued Fishnet shirts, visible behind Karina's Cleavage Window, and on Crei's entire Torso. Which is especially interesting in Crei's case, since he is male and Elian law is very homophobic.
• Superpowered Evil Side: When Verse or one of her friends is in grave danger, a hidden monster within emerges, and Verse has a deranged, murderous meltdown. This most notably happens in Shifting Tides When Ryadel endangers Xan with a Glaive, Verse's goes crazy, and brutally kills her with water magic.
• Talk to Everyone: Any time a major event is imminent, Verse has a habit of starting a conversation with each member of her group.
• Trans Tribulations: Very common in Elancia Chronicles, as Verse is a Transgender woman living in an intolerant world. For example: Her ex-girlfriend Stella broke up with Verse (who Stella thought was male) because she was caught wearing women's underwear.
• Virtual Soundtrack: Each novel has an accompanying Concept Album. (Shifting Tides) (Hunted Truths) (Awakened Gods) (The Frontier)
• Winged Humanoid: Bat, Bird and Dragon-Kin among others can use their wings to glide, but not fully fly. Their wings are seperate limbs to their arms.
• World of Technicolor Hair: Elancians have all sorts of strange hair colours: Xan's is green, Cecelia's is pink, while Rellin Sarboza and Captain Wahl Stoanes both have purple hair. Xan's hair is dyed, but it's unclear as to whether the other's are naturally coloured or not.

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