Long ago, the Overcrafters and the Undercrafters made the Spirits to help them carve out this world from water, wind and rocks. They were first kept in line through magical bondage: one half of their beings were bound to the Spirit-Roads, a hidden realm where they resided when their labour wasn't being called upon. The other half was bound to a stretch of land on the new world, where they would be held responsible for assisting the Crafters in their plans.

The Crafters were a spiteful folk, however, and soon enough, the two sides fell into conflict. They raced to sculpt grand structures in their respective domains and hurled their shards of creation at each other's works, with the fragments falling down to the earth and becoming the first sentient life. After all the drama I wrote about on the intro post, the two sides held a truce, uttered the Song of Unmaking to undo their work, and then peaced out from this realm to continue their battle somewhere else. The surviving mortals then gathered around the first Spirits they could find and asked for their protection and guidance in return for any praise and offering they requested.

The Spirits belong to four castes:

• Elders: The first Spirits created by the Crafters at the beginning of the world, quite a while before they created the mortal races by accident. Most of them went berserk and tore themselves apart when the Song of Unmaking was uttered, and many more simply laid down and fell apart. The remaining ones retain their power over the weather, elements and gateways to the Spirit-Roads, and act as patrons to the world's royal houses. Some notable Elder Spirits in the setting are:
  • Karalzyntemurek, the Thousandfold One: The patron Spirit of the Imperial House of Sharnir, whose domain is bathed in darkness and light. It acts as the chief protector of the White Banner Empire by association, and will remain so as long as it's brought offerings from eight harvests every eight springs and eight winters.
  • Lekhleigumarysh, the Firebronze One: An itinerant Elder Spirit that offers mastery of skills and good bounty in exchange for acts of personal bravery. Sworn to by House Maritsen on behalf of the imperial throne, as befits their role as guardians of the Spirits' Causeway.
  • Erridainmurvo, the Frostfingered One: The patron Spirit of House Lauginnen, the hereditary Winter-Lords of Velladan (basically Vikings with guns). Feeds off sea shanties and maritime produces and is associated with white-scaled whales.
• Sentinels: Not quite sentient, more like programs built into this world's fabric, the Sentinels are fragments of Elder Spirits who were scattered across the land by the Song of Unmaking. They grant local favours, from good harvests to flashes of inspiration, in exchange for specific, routine rituals, and show up to eat those who break their triggering taboos on their land (no pressure). Some that feature in the story are:
  • The Sleeper in the Foothills: A Sentinel that resides near the village of Belkh in the Domuri Heights, which grants a good night's sleep to follow a decent bedtime story. It became a widely-worshipped Spirit during the Age of Wandering Hunger a couple centuries back, since everyone is always short on sleep during wartime; an enduring curse in the region goes, "May you wake up to see history being made". One of the protagonists, Arkim, carries around a bond amulet dedicated to it, as his family's business is quilting blankets.
  • The Dyemaker in Jade: A muse-like Sentinel that was ritually bound to the workshop of the Lagurian artist Aneli Samsari by the Painted Order of Amuiron on a contract, in preparation for her upcoming commission Round Animals to Distract from Perpetual War.
• Transients: "Feral" Sentinels that were unbound from their homes, either through rituals or by having it physically destroyed/transformed beyond recognition. Temperamental and a bit peckish at the best of times, but will mellow out once ritually bound to a new home.
• Shatterborns: Some Spirits who fell to the Song lie dead, but not buried — and all unburied things bring trouble to the living. In ancient groves and grottoes across the land, their traces still linger, resting neither in the sky nor the earth but bringing ruin to everything caught in-between. The Shatterborns are created by ritually bonding Sentinels and Transients onto dead or dying Elders, reforging them into a powerful new being using a Liminal as a possession medium. They carry aspects and powers of all their forebears, with a childlike glee for new followers that the jaded Elders have long left behind.

Every stretch of land in this world is shaped by the Spirits that inhabit it, and how they interact with the mortals that tread on their domains. The Spirits stick to their own lands on principle and don't seek out conflict with one another, unless persuaded with a significant offering: for example, House Sharnir convinced the Thousandfold One to accompany its forces on their campaigns across the continent by dedicating the lives lost in the annual flooding of the Illa and Yemira river valleys to it, granting it the ability to extend its power beyond its own domain. The Spirits are dedicated groundskeepers who want to see their domains thrive, though their ways are often hard for humans to understand. Even two Spirits won't always agree on how to go about it; a Sentinel guarding a small patch of woodland could easily anger an Elder guiding an entire kingdom unless a bonding ritual is carried out between the two.

Aside from the Transients, the Spirits rarely make a direct appearance. Instead, they manifest their presence through the environment around them. They're the sudden splashes on a still pond. The leaves flying against the monsoon wind. Lightning flashes on a clear morning sky. They crawl into their subjects' minds when it suits them, guiding their movements and visions as if in a waking fever dream. And once in a long while they would descend on this realm themselves, shadows and flashes dancing out of their hidden paths, to feed on offerings and proclaim their will before vanishing back into…

Some mortals have walked on these roads. Some of them have even returned. The path of the Spirits twist and wrap around our world in strange ways — one can find an entrance, walk for an hour under their protection, and emerge somewhere that would normally take a full day's walk to reach. Scholars of the White Banner say that the roads are places where weird things roam, surrounded by arcs of light cutting across the perpetual night sky and bent-faced masses pulsating in the dark. The doors to the Spirit-Roads open on edges and precipices: on wells and cliff faces, at sundown and before sunrise, when errant Spirits descend on this world to feast and make mischief.

Going in is simple. First, you start with your offering. It must be the right kind: not too wet if it's flowers, not too cold if it's spices and not too self-sure if it's a deed. Then you hold your bond tight, along with any symbol you have at hand. And then you ask. Not too firmly, mind — for the Spirits are a proud lot, from the wisest Elders to the simplest Sentinels. Name your offering and state your business, and without addressing it directly, wait for the one that guards the place to make itself known to you. And then you raise your bond, give your thanks, and step into the doorway that appears before you.

Do not stray from the path. Do not spite the ones that guide your way. You will take nothing from the path and leave nothing behind. You will not listen to the calls of hungry Transients, nor will you touch the walls that bend light like silver. Tread upon this world without doing harm. If your cause is true, the Spirits are willing, and you know your way through these winding roads, maybe you will make it out. Maybe. Still, few would risk stepping on the Spirit-Roads unless they're led on by…

You'll know them when you see them. Folks with that bright shimmer in their eyes, their hands and foreheads running umber-dark with half-formed runes drawn in henna. Folks with lightning crackles in their voices, who ramble in the fits and starts of summer rains. Like every mortal in creation, Liminals are born with with faint reverbs of the Song of Unmaking humming in their veins. Nobody knows yet why it reverberates more in some individuals, however. There are other ways to be Unmade: covering yourself in runes, smelling the sacred spices, dark memories and malicious mind games can all fray the boundary between the worlds ever so slightly, leaving a trace of your presence on the other side. And yet there's no known way to replicate the way true Liminals hear the Spirits' voices calling out to them with crystal clarity.

Even that gift takes time to master, of course. It takes a year of training to filter out the noise and listen to specific voices. Then three years to learn how to respond courteously with their mind's speech. Learning the runes, the minute details of the land's Spirits and forging a bond with them would take an entire lifetime. Most Liminals serve their home villages, one generation passing down its knowledge to the next. When it comes to dealing with revered Elders, professionals are preferred. There stand several powerful orders across the world that deal in the higher forms of Liminal Arts. The largest among these is the Liminal Order of the White Banner, which administers Spiritual matters within its namesake empire. Founded by a travelling band of master Liminals somewhere north of the Bekla River, the Order spread its roots in town after town, eventually adopting the noble houses of the Eastern Domains as its clients during the Age of Wandering Hunger. It functions as a nation unto itself, running side businesses on its shrines and monasteries and providing a low-interest banking service for the commonfolk, which takes advantage of the Liminal Arts to spread information rapidly and encrypt its scrip system.

While initially taking no sides during the Age of Wandering Hunger, the Order came to the patronage of one man near its end: the lord Artayush Sharnir of Entverin Domain, who promised a steady stream of funding and offerings to its patron Spirits in exchange for carrying out a ritual to free the Thousandfold One from its spatial bondage. With the Spirit unleashed, the forces of House Sharnir made short work of their enemies, and the foes they couldn't crush they coerced into submission by seizing the Spirit bonds they crafted and ritually welding them onto their own. Now the Order runs schools and charity houses all along the Empire's domains, acting as the long arm of the imperial throne and keeping the schemes of the local lords in check. Every Midfall it would call for every village to bring up its gifted children, of which the most sensitive would be initiated as a disciple of the Order. The competition is stiff and filled with fraud and corruption, sometimes necessitating direct imperial decrees to keep things in order. The Order keeps its archives at its largest stronghold, the Sangirdai Conservatory on the eastern slope of the Ramalshina Mountains, though the imperial throne demands that the leadership spends a month each season at the Imperial Bastion of Artayush in Entverin to keep them from getting too comfortable in their mountain fort.

One thing you must understand about dealing with the Spirits is that most offerings you give are only there to sweeten the deal. There are, in essence, only two real offerings they desire: your mind and your body. All Liminals — no, all those who are Unmade — offer the first on the daily. When they sleep, they don't fall into a restful slumber; instead, they hear the Spirits' whispers louder and clearer, far more than they could in their waking moments. Only those with the gift can make something out of it, however. A part of a Liminal's training is gradually turning your sleep into a controlled trance routine, sometimes by burning sacred spices to maintain total focus. Those without the gift go through a less pleasant experience: angered by a mind they could sense but not taste, they would begin to taunt the sufferer and whisper hateful things they couldn't understand, robbing them of their ability to rest.

Once the Spirits of the land make their guiding demands clear, the next step is carrying them out. It's up for debate just how much of a favour this guidance really is; any village would know enough to pick better pastures for their herds without being told by their local Liminals that the Spirits will it, for instance. But it does add up. A pest infestation prevented here and a buried treasure dug up there all make the domain a healthier, wealthier stretch of land. It's the compliance that counts. Labours of mind and body don't sate the Spirits quite as much as consuming those things directly, but they keep the land in balance and alleviate the Spirits' responsibility to it. An unkempt land makes a poor feeding ground. Let your wells dry up, leave your gardens to wither, and before long the winds will stop blowing out of hidden doorways at sundown, signalling times of bad fortune. Droughts will come often. Families will turn against their own. The Spirits weren't the ones who brought Unmaking into this world, and it takes a lot of insult and neglect to get them to abandon a domain altogether. But when it does happen, the border between the worlds are sealed shut there and nothing else can prevent the frayed edges of reality from tearing the area apart.

Finally, there are times when simple guidance isn't enough. Do you wish to paint the biggest mural there is? To load a matchlock as easily as you'd flip your hand? To fly, for a moment, before planting your face in the dirt and realising that not even the Spirits can make gravity go away? Burn a fistful of the sacred spices and say your prayers. Loudly and firmly, this time — you'd want to make yourself heard. Ask the village Liminal to guide your way if you're worried about making a misstep and getting yourself eaten. The closer your community's relationship is with a Spirit, the more likely it would carry out your wish while it possesses your body and speaks with your voice. Possession is the most important offering one can give, but beware: a troubled mind Unmade is likely to fray the bond mid-process, turning the host into a catatonic vessel until the Spirit inside finds a way to untangle it.

[WIP]

• So I floated the idea "what if ASOIAF but about people with actual jobs" a few times while in uni, but but being a workaholic with a bunch of side commitments, I never really had a serious desire to stack up my writing portfolio. Towards the end of my final year, a bunch of mishaps happened one after another and I ended up getting hit by a hard mental relapse that knocked me out of school and work for a year. I was diagnosed with a long-running co-morbid MDD/PDD, and after months of meds and regular counselling not yielding any result,^note I'd been dealing with many of the symptoms since some stuff that happened in my pre-teen years, though I could usually manage on my own. I started to open up a bit more about the triggering incidents and got another referral for signs of CPTSD — so, y'know, a nice triple combo that's probably worth a Steam achievement, if nothing else. While going through the treatment options, I decided to look at my old art/writing drafts again, because, hey, it's not like you could dance your way into the ILHC while partially immobilised. I also got some art history e-books via the uni library and developed a fascination with religious syncretism, among other historical subjects. Celtic Christianity! Shinto-Buddhism! Southeast Asian Islam! Nestorianism! The idea of one deity ruling the cities and temples and others lurking in the wild woods grew on me. And that idea ties into the ways that culture and customs could survive subjugation; when American missionaries started building residential schools in Alaska in the 19th century, many Native communities opted to convert to the Orthodox faith instead because it suited their existing religious rites better than the comparatively austere Protestant practices. But most of all, dealing with a relapse after years of managing the symptoms got me into the idea of progress being fragile and strength being illusory, which I guess made me a bit less well-disposed towards the way most modern post-DnD fantasy portray magic as a personal power you get to keep once you've done enough Level Grinding. So I decided that magic, in my setting, would deal mainly with surrendering personal power and control instead of seizing them. Eventually it coalesced into the concept of Unmaking, which helped bind together the setting's cultures somewhat and now serves as an umbrella under which the story could explore these ideas:
  • Trauma and abuse are societal curses, passed down from one generation of flawed human beings to another unless someone standing in the way pulls all the stops to break the cycle, and even then they will crack without persistent support and understanding from the people around them.
  • When do you stop being you? Are you still responsible for the curses and baggages you carry after you've done everything in your power to resolve them? When can you give up and let go?
  • The stories we tell ourselves have power, no matter whether or not they're true. They can build, and they can destroy.
• Outside of the magic system, I'm looking to experiment in trading in character growth for character deconstruction. Aside from the First Committee of the Righteous Belkh Republic (who are thirteen and get a Lighter and Softer storyline than the others), the protagonists aren't a naive or self-defeating lot. Yesuntei, Roval, Nula and Leguan are all survivors, well-adapted to their elements, and had gone through many journeys of their own before the start of their respective plotlines. But the impending collapse of the Empire is a challenge for the best of its denizens, and they all have to deal with chaos and outside interference countering their moves over and over, as if they're stuck in a perpetual case of Wrong Genre Savvy. Eventually reach their breaking point and have to face the fact that trying harder isn't something they can just do forever, other people get hurt when they hurt themselves, and sometimes the problem is not about them, their flaws and limits or what they can do. It's not supposed to be entirely cynical or anywhere close to grimdark, but it should make the reader uncomfortable with the choices on offer and wonder how they'd do in the same situations.
• I've been getting some friends to review my outline of the story, and a former classmate from uni called it "The Death of Stalin meets The Witcher", which I didn't totally get because I knew very little about the latter… but I've been looking into The Witcher 3 and have decided that this part of the soundtrack will be the setting's theme song until I'm good enough to write my own music.
  • Someone also pointed me to The Traitor Baru Cormorant as another example of a fantasy work that deals with imperialism and cultural assimilation, with a protagonist that resembles one of my characters in almost every way. I'm not going for that book's hard takedown of colonialism or anything overtly political, but I'll be sure to take a look at it for useful pointers.
  • Another work that I was referred to recently is Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, which apparently integrates voice-hearing and obsessive compulsions into the gameplay mechanics, with the protagonist needing to carry out weird personal rituals before doing mundane tasks.
• I use the made-up term "Liminal" instead of "shaman" because the latter is an Evenki word referring to a particular set of religious practices, and I don't really feel right using the word out of context without there being a large body of indigenous Siberian media to counterbalance it.
• Next items on the list: bondcrafting and runes! It's a missing piece from this whole exposition on the Liminal Arts and I'm working on some illustration to help show the concept in more detail.