Alfeñan - Whistler's Worldbuilding

Here is where I will put my notes about the island kingdom on which my dragons reside. It will be used to discuss politics, religion, etc.

First I will deal with how the Yong—the king of the nation—is handled. Every Yong is said to be appointed by both Maci and Letvaf, the forever-battling gods of the nation, to keep the peace among the people and prevent others from leaving. However, he may only be there for a certain amount of time; when he is 200 years old^{on Earth...} about 44 years and 4 ½ months he is killed in some way, most often drinking a sort of poison. This ensures that he returns to meet with the gods after a certain amount of time.

So two gods....who are not at peace, and at war...must select a Yong...to keep the peace of the nation...so they can war against each other freely, while at the same time subjugated the populace to eternal war that they perpetuate? Then the Yong, after 200 or so years, must die a horrible poisonous death so that a new one can be selected? I'm curious what purpose this system even serves. Please elaborate, because I am much confuse.

Edited by Darkflamewolf on Jan 26th 2021 at 2:10:14 PM

When you put it that way, it is admittedly terribly confusing.

The reason that the Yong has to die after a certain time of reigning is that after a while he becomes too old to protect the people, and thus their firstborn son has to take his place. However, since it is said that his soul contains portions of both Letvaf and Maci, those two souls must be forced out of his body and be transferred into his son's soul. Most often it would be done through some other ritual that does not involve poison—possibly a ritual stabbing.

Of course, Letvaf and Maci fighting is only because the planet is tidally locked to its star (Letvaf), while Maci is its moon and has its icy surface slowly being stripped away. Whenever Maci totally eclipses Letvaf, it is considered a major blow to both, as the people can see the tiny bits of ice streaking through the atmosphere like meteors. In these instances, the Yong would declare an emergency while he prays privately to the two, fearing his own judgment.

It still is pretty confusing. I mean...what is the endstate goal here? What is this system supposed to accomplish? It merely seems like it is staving off the inevitable. Like some cataclysmic event washed over this world/universe and broke it all to hell and this was the only temporary solution that works. (Like summoners and Sin in Final Fantasy X - it's clearly a broken system loop, but it's the only thing that works to starve off eventual apocalypse)

Yes, it is simply keeping the peace as a temporary solution. Eventually, Maci will either be completely eroded (though that will take billions of years) or will fall toward the world and start making it spin before crashing into it (again, billions of years).

I'm going to assume then that this is the crux of all the issues and the ultimate goal that your protagonists are going to work towards in solving?

Admittedly, I had forgotten about this part of the worldbuilding, as it isn't exactly too relevant to the plot. However, it does somewhat fit, as the Yong who overthrew the previous one has died, and in his wake were his twins, the elder of which has realized he is a transgender man and wants to ensure that he becomes Yong in his brother's place.

There can be only one!!! Your post title reminds me: I've yet to actually give my world a proper name and I'm nearly two books deep already! lol It's just never been important yet to the story.

Edited by Darkflamewolf on Jan 26th 2021 at 6:07:49 AM

Yeah. Alfeñan (since renamed to Alfemyan^note properly Alfemjan) is just the chain of islands on the world, known as Meleti. I got that name from a corruption of an earlier world I made—Meredith—then made it into an early version of my conlang.