Troper Langsa's playground universe.
Grandia Collective is an assortment of shortfic set in a postindustrial fantasy world, where scattered, walled cities are protected and connected by ‘wardens’; a class of magicians trained to combat hostile creatures
born of human despair. The Collectiverse favours one particular web (the
eponymous 'Grandia Collective') and the wardens who hold her walls, navigate her highways, and ensure her populace isn’t devoured by soul-snarfling spectres.
... it's a bit much for a
Slice of Life series, huh?
Despite the setting's potential for an actual myth arc, Langsa keeps the
Collectiverse material episodic, as she's
incapable of
creating complex plots.
Click
here
for the shorts. Perhaps a serial will come into being someday.
Unrelated to that old
videogame series.
The Collectiverse provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Brown: Percival Ramsay. He plays it up as Kham Samphan.
- Ambiguously Gay: Ulrika Eklund.
- Animesque
- Apron Matron: Maricruz the restaurant proprietor.
- Ascended Extra: Merrill Theroux, Louisa Fletcher, Percival Ramsay.
- Asskicking Equals Authority: occasionally subverted. While most Head Wardens earn their position by accomplishment, sometimes all a candidate needs are the right connections.
- Bald Women: Ulrika Eklund shaves her head regularly to invoke Bald of Awesome.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Nea Fairchild and Kham Samphan.
- Butt Monkey: Louisa and Merrill. Langsa brought them into the cast proper for this exact purpose.
- Cast From Lifespan: why most wardens retire around thirty. Hurling all that Life Energy around isn't good for one's longevity.
- Child Prodigy: Nea Fairchild, who eventually replaced her doting uncle as the Grandia Collective's Head Warden.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: the colour of a warden's uniform indicates their subclass. Convoy wear navy, gatekeepers wear maroon, and trainees on their practicum wear white. Private wardens wear black, or whichever colour they began with sans Central-issued armband.
- Competence Zone: most active wardens are between 18-30 years old. Justified, as a decade of service drains about as much from your lifespan.
- Conscription: are you a firstborn child? Enjoy spending your prepubescent years training to become a warden, and whittling away your 18th - 23rd in the field.
- Funny Foreigner: Kham Samphan
- Genki Girl: Nea Fairchild as an adolescent.
- Heart Drive: golems need these to function. Grant Vallance does, too.
- Heroic RROD: the consequences of expending too much Life Energy.
- Those Two Guys: Ellis Albright and Grant Vallance.
- Just a Stupid Accent: Kham Samphan.
- Les Yay: Langsa occasionally stumbles into this.
- Live-Action Escort Mission: this encompasses about half of what the warden subclass 'convoy' does.
- Magic A is Magic A
- Magic Feather: children learning to manifest their Life Energy may find using a treasured item as a focus helpful.
- Magitek
- Master-Apprentice Chain: Head Warden Faulkner took Frieda Reinhardt through her practicum; five years down the line, Frieda takes Nea Fairchild through hers.
- Meganekko: Frieda Reinhardt, of the Stoic Spectacles variety.
- Nonuniform Uniform: the only mandatory elements of the warden uniform are the coat, pants, and boots.
- Our Golems Are Different: Collectiverse golems needn't be crafted from clay, among other things.
- Our Souls Are Different: can be excised, transplanted, weaponized...
- Real Men Wear Pink: Grant Vallance makes cute felt plushies.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: the golem birds tradionally held by Grandia's Head Wardens.
- Rule Of Cool: the premise. Just run with it.
- Savvy Woman Energetic Girl: in earlier timelines, Frieda Reinhardt and Nea Fairchild.
- Slice of Life: no signs of a proper plot for miles.
- The Heartless: the mist/mist-vermin, who double as Emotion Eaters.
- Trigger Happy: though they don't use firearms to temper the mist, some wardens develop this trait after a few years in service.
- Waistcoat of Style: Ellis Albright prides himself on his collection.
- World Half Full: even in a universe plagued by the manifestation of human despair, happiness is not unattainable.
- X Meets Y: The 'verse and its mechanics can be aptly described as Witch Hunter meets Tegami Bachi.
- The stories proper are pretty much Slice of Life slapped onto a fantasy setting.
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