Back in 2013, just after my freshman year at university, I logged back onto Neopets.com just for the hell of it after years without playing. Right at the height of my love for A Song of Ice and Fire, I was inspired to create a fantasy universe of my own, complete with all the things I loved reading about: distant kingdoms, intricate magic systems, benevolent and not-so-benevolent deities, and many characters that hopefully had varying traits and characteristics to make them interesting.
Now, just over ten years later, my favourite thing to do on that website is continue to create characters in this continuously-percolating brainchild of mine — now it just so happens that there's two of them! The Company of Giants, that original 'verse from ten years ago, is the labour of love that kept me coming back to Neopets after several bouts of hiatus; meanwhile, Fellverse, centred around a written horror campaign/RP spearheaded by one of my friends from Neopets, is nearing a year old this year (!) and keeps me going.
After a while, some stories grow to the point where the limitations of an ostensibly-children's website from the late 90s/early 2000s can't contain them anymore — hence, this website. (It's 2023 and I still can't say the words grape or uncle without clever letter substitutions or workarounds in the HTML over there.) One day, it's going to be the hub of all the lore and all the characters in both of these words; right now, I'm still laying the bricks one by one, and very slowly. Thanks for stopping by!
My worldbuilding and character creation both stem from my love of all things fantasy, and the many different ways the concept of "magic" has shown up in the books, movies, and shows I've consumed. It's also pretty firmly rooted in all the things I loved about majoring in art history: the use of visuals to create, confirm, or (de)legitimise identity and authority; the complex familial relationships, political alliances, and other interpersonal interactions involved in creating, maintaining, or destabilising sovereignty; and, of course, the complete and utter drama, glitz, and glamour of the Baroque.
The art historical references, in particular, are much stronger in the city of Oremis, created for the country of Basca, situated in the universe of Fell Tides, the campaign from which Fellverse stems. In a nutshell, Oremis is a fantasy Toledo, but the Toledo of Charles V, where it was the beating heart of the burgeoning Spanish empire, a beacon of Catholicism, and makers of the finest swords anywhere in the region. On the other hand, the high fantasy references are more clearly defined in Ozvan, the continent where Giants is set; on Ozvan, gods once walked the earth and fashioned empire for themselves, before deciding the call of the cosmos was finally too difficult to ignore, leaving behind human mages as inheritors of their powers.
Lastly, and particularly in Oremis, I've also drawn a lot on the many myths and folktales from the Philippines. The motherland is rife with so many wonderful cultures that all have their own stories to tell, and I love sprinkling my culture into my writing, in particular, traits and traditions from my parents' provinces in the north.