Part 3 of the Palaververse: Corva · 6:21pm Sep 29th, 2015
Another week, another unreasonably large outpouring of background detail for the Palaververse. This time, focusing on everyone's favourite and inexplicably sapient avians, the corvids of Corva!
As for previous posts in this series, if there's a thus-far unexplored nation, entity, or concept hanging around the Palaververse that you'd like to have me elaborate on, drop a comment here letting me know and I'll write about the one most enquired-after for next week. I'm still inclined to hold off on Capra for now, but the point's being fast approached where most of their immediate neighbours/ex-conquests have been covered. They'll get to have their time in the spotlight soon. Kudos, as always, goes to themaskedferret for kindly proofreading this insanity.
If the previous posts about Ovarn and Asinia haven't scared you off, and if the bastard offspring of Genghis Khan, William Wallace, and a crow sound like they hold any appeal (assume Genghis and Wallace were both spectacularly drunk that night), have a peek at the corvids below the page break and the image (found here).
"Aerodynamic? Awa and shite. There's nae law of physics that could tell me when I can or cannae fly."
“Where civilisation ends in the east, Corva begins.” According to the rest of the Ungulan continent, at least, and at a first glance, they don’t seem to be wrong.
The great Greycairn mountain range that runs across Ungula from west to east comes to its widest and most rugged extent in the vast lands of Corva, taking up the entire north of the country with rank upon rank of serrated black peaks. Tangled seas of conifers fill the spaces in between and run up their slopes, and the high mountain tops trap the great magical storms that come sweeping in from the easterly Black Ocean. Dark stormclouds nearly always blot out the skies over Corva as a result, hammering the land with rain and arcane detritus. Foothills and heather-covered moorland spill south from the highland taiga, riddled with cold rivers and still lochs, until they meet seacliffs, crashing waves, and deep, dark waters pockmarked with rocky islands.
At this point, the magical, territorial, and perpetually-ravenous wild beasts and predators that infest most corners of this wilderness come off as an insult atop heaps of injury, really.
Only one sapient species - according to most other Ungulans - is hardy enough to call this land a home. Less charitable Ungulans remark that only one species is sufficiently lunatic enough to call it home as well. And home is exactly what the corvids call it.
For the most part and for time immemorial, Corva has only been the suggestion of anything like a unified nation, playing host to hundreds of different clans united by a common species and little more. Members and families from each of the corvid subspecies exist aplenty within each clan, each roughly the size of a pony and each with their own innate magic: strong and resilient crows, swift and weathercrafting magpies, ravens with the ability to channel magic through their wings, rooks with limited powers of augury and soothsaying, jackdaws with gifts for alchemy and imbuing enchanted objects with magic, and others still. Any clan that can use the talents of each of the subspecies within it to their fullest is a formidable power, and any clan - whether numbering in the mere dozens or several thousands - will usually consist of multiple extended families from each of the tribes, pulling together to survive as a community.
Individual clan customs and ways of life vary wildly, dictated largely by the resources that they can hunt, gather, herd, or raid for. Many clans are nomadic, flying in groups across the landscape of Corva and throwing up temporary shelter wherever the storms are weakest and the resources available for hunting and gathering are at their most plentiful. Others travel based on fleets of coracles and riverboats along the rivers and lochs. Yet others build homes amongst the tree canopy, or even excavate and settle amidst the branches of one of the great mountain-sized titan pines - and such pines can hold several clans at a time. Permanent towns - or at least, what the rest of Ungula would recognise as towns - are usually built high, with sturdy buildings running up cliff faces and mountains and the trunks of petrified titan pines.
Nobody knows when the corvids first started living in Ungula’s far east. Ask one clan bard, and he’ll tell you that the corvids have always lived there since the beginning of Time, born amidst fury and strife in the manner the Creator meant them to live, and that their ancestors saw the flames of Antlertis’ Fall from across the ocean when the world was young. Ask another bard, and she’ll tell you that the clans were driven east by the young Capric Empire from their original homes in the centre of Ungula, harried and persecuted until they found a land no enemy would follow them into.
Other bards have stories of their own, and picking the truth from the multitude of myths is an impossible task. Only a few stories are consistent across all Corva, stories which themselves skirt a fine line between historical truth and legend.
These stories are about the first Cormaers.
In a dark age thousands of years ago, it is said, before all other nations had ever risen, the clans were few, small, and bitterly divided. Raiding - known as reiving in Corvic - for whatever scant resources clans could hunt for was rife and bloody, sibling fought sibling, and not a chick that was born and survived to adulthood would ever know a moment’s peace or quarter, whether from the world or other corvids. All until one day, when one crow chieftain took it upon herself to unite corvid-kind under her own rule. Her original name is lost to time, but she forever secured herself a place in legend as the one who first united all the clans under her command, whether through force of arms or diplomacy. And at the end of her rise to power, she wove her own crown out of wood and thorns and vines to be acclaimed as ruler of all corvids - the First Cormaer.
She ruled long and well, it is further said, carving out a pocket of security for the clans amidst the harshness of the world with her own might and cunning. She gave the clans their common laws and customs, customs which persist to this day, and saw several generations of chicks born and grow in relative peace and plenty. Not a single corvid starved, the clans grew to fill all the land, and all worked in harmony for the common weal. And when the First Cormaer passed away, she gave her title to her own son, satisfied that her people’s future had been secured.
However, the Second Cormaer was nothing like as competent as the First, and under his misrule ambitious clan chieftains agitated for power and freedom from his authority. After the first few years of his rule, he lost the acclaim of many of the clans, and went out to re-assert his rulership in battle with the support of those clans still loyal to the memory of his mother. He lost the battle, lost his life, and lost the corvids a Cormaer for centuries to come. No chieftain was able to win enough wide support to reclaim the title, and the clans fell back into their old ways; fractiousness and conflict.
Mired in legend though these accounts may be, they define the character of much of modern Corva. The few common customs that exist between the clans are credited to the First Cormaer still, and the Second Cormaer is taken as a firm lesson in the value of leadership through merit rather than birth. Clan chieftains assume their positions through popular acclaim, typically earned through proven skill or prestigious deeds, and are often advised by a circle of the oldest and wisest in a clan. Offspring of a chieftain who aspire to leadership are fiercely scrutinised and judged by the rest of a clan to ensure that the proper meritorious ways are upheld. In the warrior culture of the corvids, the system fosters division and individual ambition within a clan, and which inevitably entails shows of force against other clans and nations in order that skill and leadership can be honed and shown - but the personal might, canniness, and healthy paranoia it encourages among many ambitious corvid warriors cannot be denied.
The legends of these old Cormaers also gave a foundation for the first properly-recorded Cormaers to claim legitimacy, which marked the moment when Corva first properly entered Ungula’s annals of history. Under eighteen-hundred years ago, the Capric Empire, whose Imperators had consolidated their conquests in Bovaland, Asinia, and Ovarn, looked east to the corvid clans for new vassals, slaves, and sources of tribute. The imperial legions marched east, expecting easy and piecemeal conquests. Instead, they found full-blown war.
Ríastrad, the magpie that would become the next Cormaer, came from one of the more westerly clans directly in the path of the Empire. Knowing that no one clan could hope to win against a legion, let alone several at once, Ríastrad flew east to rally the support of the other clans. Invoking the stories about the First Cormaer, he rallied clan after clan to his own banner, persuading them that the Empire’s advance represented a threat to their very existence as a free people. Soon, his host of warriors and chieftains numbered in the tens of thousands, and Ríastrad wove a new crown in order to lead the charge back west as the Third Cormaer.
Although the disciplined forces of the Capric Empire won nearly every pitched battle, the land of Corva itself was used as a weapon against them. The clans bled the legions out in its hostile depths, leading them on and further on until they could be surrounded and torn apart in the darkness between the mountains. For every punitive attack against a clan’s non-fighting population, a reive would be led against a nearby capric settlement. Caprid patrols would vanish and be found as scraps later, eaten and pecked apart down to the marrow in their bones. Corvid beserkers would ingest substances to drive them into battle-madness and make suicidal plunges down into sleeping legion camps. The war was long and savage, and Ríastrad himself was slain and his entire clan butchered. And although the clans weren’t able to stop the Empire from forcibly annexing and enslaving great swathes of western Corva and the corvids there, the Empire was all but bled dry and lost all desire for further expansion in the east.
At this same time, the three pony tribes lived in the mountains to the north of Corva, and while they were common targets for clan reivers, reports exist from the war where the tribes fought alongside the clans to stave off the Empire’s advance. Stories even exist of individual pegasi being inducted as honorary clan members. This sporadic friendship couldn’t last long after the time of the Third Cormaer, after the borders had been redrawn and the clans fell apart once more. The savage windigo-induced winters that fell upon the pony tribes saw them migrate west across the continent some fifteen-hundred years ago, leaving Corva far behind. Their paths wouldn’t cross those of the corvids in any major fashion again for centuries yet.
The long border between the Capric Empire and the diminished clan territories was a hostile frontier for all of its existence, and a major thorn in the Empire’s side. Legion after legion cut its teeth - and often was sharply diminished - policing its extent against corvid reivers, distracted on that front from happenings elsewhere. A greater sense of solidarity developed between the corvid clans, a shared narrative of defiance in the face of overwhelming odds. As the Capric Empire began its long decline - aided by the misrule of some demon of chaos based in Equestria - the clans grew bolder, more unified, and readier to accept another Cormaer.
Gallus, a rook from the southerly islands, rose as the Fourth Cormaer a thousand years ago, concurrent with a period of strife in Equestria after Princess Celestia banished Princess Luna. A Capric Empire that could have otherwise taken advantage of Equestria’s internal instability instead found thousands of corvid warriors led by a new Cormaer pouring across its borders. The old corvid territories were reclaimed by the Fourth Cormaer with the same ferocity with which they’d been first taken, and the fighting and reives were said to have raged all the way to the gates of the Capric capital of Bellbylon itself. Gallus was killed there, ending the directed momentum of the corvid war effort, but too late to stop the clans returning home laden with Capric treasures. The whole Empire teetered on the brink for several more decades, and was then wracked by wars of independence across all of its subdued territories. Although the old Empire held on as long as it could, the combined efforts of most of the actual Empire and the rising power of Equestria were too much to weather. The Empire lost its wars, and although the imperial trappings would persist for a little while yet, the Empire for all intents and purposes fell.
For Corva, the loss of their old common enemy - the force that had cost them two Cormaers and had harried all the clans at one point or another - brought about another period of disunity. The reacquisition of their old territories settled many historical grudges, and the new neighbouring nations of Bovaland and Ovarn made tempting targets for those clans interested in reiving, trading, or whatever mix of the two was most passingly convenient.
That openness to trading with new, not-reflexively-hostile partners saw a new era of limited engagement with the rest of the continent for Corva. Merchants from other nations began to trade with those clans willing and able to protect their caravans and ships from other, more predatory clans. Over a century of this, the clans who had a surplus of resources to trade with - most typically whisky, lumber, and components of magical beasts native to Corva - grew powerful and wealthy compared to their peers, and it was from one of those clans that the Fifth Cormaer rose.
Cailleach, a jackdaw from the reconquered west, not only saw her clan grow wealthy and well-equipped off trade, but also permitted a Diamond Dog expeditionary force to establish a new underhold within a mountain on her territory in exchange for preferential access to whatever metal goods they crafted from the ore under the mountain. With a powerful clan, great wealth, and enchanted steel weapons in her grasp, she was able to rise to dominance across all of Corva and was acclaimed as Cormaer relatively late in her life. After a (somewhat perfunctory) reive into Ovarn to try and demonstrate traditional martial keenness, Cailleach spent the rest of her short rule trying to whip Corva into a more unified shape, making efforts to centralise her command, curtail the powers of the chieftains, and standardise the succession of Cormaers to establish an unbroken line of them - to make Corva the centralised match of other nations on the continent.
Unfortunately for her designs, Cailleach passed away after a very short rule and became one of the few Cormaers to die of natural causes. (And in Corva, being ambushed and devoured by a carnivorous tree is entirely natural.) Reactionary forces among the traditionalist chieftains and warriors quickly acted to undo most of the changes she’d made, and the counter-reaction to them from amongst her supporters quickly took the form of a civil war across Corva, dividing the clans between the traditionalists and modernisers. The traditionalists won in the end, and their leader - Glaikit, a young jay from the eastern mountains - quickly saw herself acclaimed as the Sixth Cormaer. Two Cormaers in under five years was an unprecedentedly quick turnaround for the position, and the second of them lost no time in dismantling the few institutions set up by the first. Glaikit then proved her traditional martial ethos by leading a great reive into Bovaland, laying waste to the young country and turning the bovines off Corva for good, and cemented her traditionalist approach by dying violently soon after assuming her role, in close combat with the Bovish Bullwalda of the time.
The clans were disunited once again, but some changes had taken hold. Some small progress had been made on taming the land during the Fifth’s reign, and more and more clans were settling down in semi-permanent settlements and towns rather than continually migrating. Feuding and reiving between clans became more formalised and often as not bloodless. Craftscorvids and bards rose in status, and the few artisans and natural philosophers produced amongst the clans enjoyed greater access to one another’s work, inventing and collaborating in a haphazard fashion.
One of these inventions, in the centuries between the Sixth and Seventh Cormaers, was black powder. Formed from a few natural ingredients and specially enchanted by jackdaw arts, the explosive powder soon found itself widely adopted amongst the clans as a destructive tool in mining and land clearance and even more widely as a weapon of war. The early adopters of it found themselves at an advantage over other clans in the substance’s use, as non-ravens were now able to produce explosions at a distance and send projectiles flying absent much training, with the mere threat of its deployment often enough to win battles. The corvid charge was developed as a shock tactic in this time, an initial barrage of black powder weaponry followed immediately with an all-out frontal charge.
One ambitious young crow chieftain, Dunderheid, used the size and industry of his own clan and vassals to produce large quantities of black powder and drilled his warriors relentlessly in the corvid charge. Dunderheid’s ambition and talent ran past remaining a mere chieftain, and even when he clawed his way up to become the Seventh Cormaer, his ambition still festered.
The new Cormaer had his sights on the whole continent. His ambition leaked down into the ranks of those clans and warriors pledged to him, and even led to him drafting and training corvids who would have otherwise stayed far from battle. And a century before the modern day, the hell that was the Corvid Incursion followed.
Great warflocks clad in steel and armed with black powder weaponry blasted a path through the Greycairns, surprising and overwhelming both Bovaland and Ovarn in a matter of a few months. Their lands were ravaged briefly before Dunderheid declared dominion over them and moved on. Capra, reunified under the Capricious Crown and as yet internally unstable, was quick to offer tribute and passage to the Cormaer for fear of courting devastation as well. The warflocks flew on through Capra, engaging in only minimal pillaging before breaking through into the west of Ungula.
The west, Equestria and the Asinial Republic, had caught word of the relentlessness and direction of the Cormaer’s advance, and rushed to mobilise their own forces and come to the defence of the rest of the continent. Princess Celestia called for every possible volunteer to join the Equestrian legions, while Asinia’s own relatively small army evacuated the countryside and withdrew to fortify their capital.
Eventually, the storm rolled in from across the continent, with the mighty massed warflock led by Dunderheid tearing briefly through the Asinial countryside and making for the main path across Equestria’s border at Dream Valley. There, over three hundred thousand clan warriors and drafted corvids met ten full legions of Equestrian volunteer soldiers, two hundred thousand ponies, at the largest battle to have yet taken place on Ungula. Over several days, corvid charge after corvid charge battered against a firm line of armoured earth ponies and unicorns, while the skies were whipped up into a low-hanging tempest by pegasi to ward off the flocks. Every time the corvids extended their own charge to try and envelop the Equestrian lines, the Equestrians moved up reserves to extend their own lines until the battle stretched across the whole valley. At dawn on the fourth day of the battle, Dunderheid committed his entire forces and personally led his clan warriors in a charge against the thinned Equestrian lines to force a breach.
With that dawn came Celestia herself, leading the majority of the pegasus reserves in a flight right over the tempest clouds to come plunging down on the corvid rear. In that moment, she wielded the full power of the sun, and in the moment after, countless thousands of corvids had been reduced to ash, the Seventh Cormaer amongst them. The formerly-lush Dream Valley was turned to molten rock and glass, and the broken corvid forces were left leaderless, scattered, and with a newfound terror and respect for the capabilities of the ponies and their princess. The relatively-intact Equestrian legions chased the tatters of the warflock back across the continent, liberating the nations that had been conquered and ensuring that the Capricious Crown didn’t move to exploit their weakened position.
The whole mess had countless aftermaths, one of which was the unquestioned establishment of Equestria as the supreme power in Ungula and the cementation of the Pax Equestriana in the modern era - cause a ruckus thereafter, and Equestria would almost certainly breathe down your back. Perceptions of the corvids across the continent plummeted as well. For the average Ungulan citizen, a race of romantic barbarians had become blood-soaked savages, champing at the bit for conquest and almost certainly intent on eating you and your entire family. (Though no corvid would deny the claims of carnivorousness, even of fellow sapients and even fellow corvids, many clans thought nothing of the pragmatic practise amidst harsh conditions and others even saw it in a respectful light.)
For the corvids themselves, even as a few shellshocked survivors returned home to clans who’d lost whole generations of their kin at Dream Valley, the remaining leadership had acquired a sense of Corva’s latent strength. The tragedy of Dream Valley found a ready hold in the songs sung far and wide by the bards - bards sponsored by certain young chieftains, it is said, who saw both the inevitable recovery of the clans and the writing on the wall. One defeat at the hooves of Equestria was quickly turned into an act of humiliation perpetrated against all of Corva, demanding avenging. An eager audience was found in the next generations of warriors, despising the defeat of their forbears and resenting the shame they perceived to be heaped atop their mantles.
A hundred years since Dream Valley, and for all that the corvid nation remains much as it has always done - riven by clan feuds and fluctuating alliances, mired in a harsh and unforgiving wilderness, and only barely in contact with the rest of the continent at the best of times - much has changed as well. Black powder has advanced as well and new weapons have been developed in the clan feuds to carry its use yet further; claw-gonnes, lang-gonnes, and bombards, amongst other arcane types with arcaner names. New ways of warfare have arisen as well, with black powder weapons integrated much more closely with charges by corvid warriors to aid attacks from each and every front all at once. In possession of a new general narrative against the ‘cuddies’ of Equestria and their so-called tyrant queen, many of the clans have achieved a new unity not seen since the days of the Capric Empire.
Most saliently, and only in the last year, there has arisen an Eighth Cormaer, Cranreuch. A raven from the islands, time alone shall tell what Cranreuch’ll make of Corva - and what she’ll make of the rest of the continent.
Not nearly as inexplicable as one might think: corvids, along with parrots, are the most intelligent of all birds, and animals in general. People have argued in real life, in serious academic publications, that they are, in fact, sapient.
3429926
That intelligence makes them firm favourites of mine. I'd heard about their problem-solving and tool-using and suchlike cunning things, but I hadn't heard of any publications arguing for their actual sapience. Those sound like they'd be grand to read.
On that topic, it may in fact be seen as a testament for human ingenuity that our most clever pieces of software can reach a level of intelligence comparable to that of a corvid – and as a testament for the intelligence of these birds that there is currently no infrastructure on which said software can run less than a hundred times slower than the thought processes of said birds.
3429934
Can't find the relevant papers, but here is a good Wikipedia link. They actually out perform the great apes in several tests of intelligence; the term 'bird brain' as an insult is a farce in the light of modern zoology.
3429982
Really? My word, that's a good testament to both corvids and human ingenuity. The running-a-hundred-times-slower is fascinating in its own right. I didn't know grey matter still had that much of an advantage over computing infrastructure.
3429996
I've not done much comparative cognition amongst my psychology studies, and doing some on corvids seems like both a fun and semi-productive use of an evening.
Thank you.
A very interesting read. And yes, there are many different animals that are shockingly capable of so much more than we thing, from the birds, to mice, to octopi, from all walks of the world. How much their current unkindness will be set upon the world, well. Only time tells.
3430001
As far as I know, the reason for that is mostly the completely different structure. Having just a few big, bulky, super fast CPUs has its own merits, but apparently having millions of small interacting neurons is a lot more effective for some tasks - and just building a neural network to simulate a brain with brings its own problems if you want a lot of them neural nodes.
I'm suspecting crispy-fried, if they try that again. There are four Princesses of Equestria now.
3430003
Animals are more cunning than we give them credit for, no question. Elephants rank pretty highly for intelligence too, so I've gathered. Their own social behaviours are exceedingly impressive.
Glad you found it interesting as well.
3430021
Ah, that would make sense. I did some computing a couple of years ago, so neural networks ring a (exceedingly, exceedingly rusty) bell.
Not so much a sleeping giant as one that has to be knocked unconscious periodically. And every time it wakes up, it's angrier and more terrible. If this state of affairs continues, either Corva will destroy the rest of Ungula or vice versa.
It only seems natural to discuss Bovaland next, don't you think?
3430054
3430069
Nomination for Bovaland noted! And hopefully, it's a state of affairs that can be resolved in some way other than destruction. Time will tell.
3430058 I sorta wonder if there are any notable true sea kingdoms, over the maritime ones. Or is it very much a scattered deal below the deep waves?
3430104
There are a few sentient sea-dwelling creatures, such as sea serpents, which sometimes arrange themselves in ad-hoc shoals and tribes, Rumours also abound of a long-extinct race of 'sea ponies' or something similar. However, for the most part, as far as anyone knows, the deep dark waters around the inhabited continents are a wilderness for intelligent life.
3430119 Thank ya kindly.
3430089
3430196
I approve. Greatly.
Both sisters would have a rather nuanced view about the species, in comparison to most Equestrians. They'd remember stories of the days when corvids and the pony tribes fought side by side against the Capric Empire, and have either been present or observing from orbit when the Fourth Cormaer's invasion of the Empire thwarted Capra's attempt to take advantage of Equestria at a time of crisis. They'd understand the harsh conditions that the clans have had to adapt to, know of the multitude of peacemakers and innocent chicks and fledglings amongst them, and regret the momentum of history that brought them to the current strife - but at the same time, they've got ponies to protect. And any Cormaer who threatens said ponies will find themselves caught between fire and darkness in short order.
3430234
I'm glad you enjoyed my tentative efforts
3429996
Depends on the bird. There are more than a few species that deserve the moniker.
3430234
Glad to see some of my suspicions were correct, even more so than I expected in some places. Though, if the Corvids are thought crazy because they live in that area and the ponies used to live even further North of that... well, what does that say about the ponies? Also, I can definitely see the new Cormaer deciding to take her chances whether there's one princess or four. The worse for her though, because if they can't protect Equestria then you can be damn sure they'll avenge it. Incidentally, how is 'Cormaer' pronounced?
I would like to put my vote in for the Griffin tribes next week. Specifically I'm curious about their history in relation to the Corvid Incursion and the various upheavels in Equestria.
Aww yeah, I was waiting for this. Looks like they are similar to non-romanticized vikings. Nice to see Capra and the Corvids indirectly benefiting the rest of Ungula as well. The Capric Empire provides a great northern shield so that southern civilizations can develop, and the Corvids are the real reason all those other species eventually gain independence.
3430089 When your enemy is the greatest fire magic user on the planet, tons of explosives can be extremely useful... or extremely counterproductive. We've seen that enough physical force can break through any magical barrier, so the big question is, who'll be standing on those 4,000 crates the day Celestia Calls the Sun Down? Timing is everything!
3430424
Historically, the ponies were also regarded as hardy lunatics on the edge of civilisation. And today ... well, only their status as a major and interconnected civilisation protects them from part of that description. Equestria, temperate and fertile and well-managed though it may be for the most part, is still threaded through with eldritch forests and arid wastelands and magical beasts, is apparently the subject of one world-shattering threat every few months, suffers its own easterly winds from the other side of the Black Ocean, and contains a maximum security prison for the most dangerous entities known to the world.
Go up to any inhabitant of any of the central countries of Ungula, say, "Those X are goddamned crazy," where X is either ponies or corvids, and you'll get nods in return.
Cor-maer. Emphasis upon the first syllable, with 'Cor' pronounced as in 'cord', and 'Maer' pronounced the same way as 'air'. Nomination for the griffons noted as well!
3430425
A couple of centuries of use has alerted the corvids to certain exploitable things about black powder, which they've done their best to protect against. A unicorn sending a fireball at a barrel of black powder, for example, would find the barrel mostly likely warded with a few runes of sealing and fire-shielding.
Unfortunately, the scope for corvid enchanters to proof an object against, say, a direct solar flare isn't great. Dispersal and secrecy are your bestest ever friends in this sort of situation. Angry sun-wielding alicorns tend to be able to overwhelm most other things.
"Fourth Cormaer thousand"
"a thousand"?
Interesting. I was looking forward to this, and I was not disappointed. :)
3430513
Well-spotted, and corrected! Glad you found it interesting as well.
This was a fascinating read, but I can't help but wonder how Corva got “Cuddly Queen" from “Celestia incinerated their God forsaken ARMY."
My vote is for the Dragons of The Burning Mountains.
3430531
'Cuddy', absent an 'l'. (Scots for a small horse, donkey, or associated equine.) Entirely different and far happier historical outcomes would have had to transpire for 'cuddly' to be attached as a descriptor.
Nomination for the dragons of the Burning Mountains noted.
3430523
Thanks.
3430549
:)
3430549 Pfft, now I know what next year's April fools blog needs to be XD
I vote for the Bova please! But I definitely want a blog post about the sea serpents and the remaining scraps of text about the sea ponies too.
3430603
Nomination for Bovaland noted! Crivens, I'm going to have to do more worldbuilding at this rate.
Love the combination of the steppe hordes with a distinct and bloody Celtic vibe. I think Bovaland next, what with the lead in from this post.
3430727
Nomination for Bovaland noted! And I'm glad the steppe-horde/Celtic mish-mash of elements worked. It was certainly good fun to write about.
Very, very nice. I tend to be much more character-centric in my own story ideas, but I always enjoy reading other authors' Tolkienesque attention to worldbuilding detail.
I think there were two main concepts that struck me as I've been reading your little articles here, ideas that have always seemed ripe for exploration in fantasy in general, and FiM in particular. The first is just how different from ours a world would be if in it existed multiple sapient races.
I mean, your world - much like the real world - is rife with conflict and conquest. Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great analogues throughout your history keep trying to conquer other nations, only to see their empires fall apart immediately upon their death. Worse - at least in the real world, regions might still hold together, and new nations might be forged as civilization is spread forcefully via conquest, but in your world, things always seem destined to fall back to the status quo eventually. I can only imagine that a map of the Capric empire viewed throughout history must look like a balloon, swelling, shrinking, swelling, shrinking, always returning back to its own borders after enough time.
The problem, of course, is the (for the most part) inability of the various races on Ungula to interbreed. In real life, conquerors can settle down and intermarry with the native population, or take wives back with them to their homelands, helping integrate the two civilizations. Over time, any people from any culture can forge a new nation. The United States is a rare example of that done (mostly) peacefully and voluntarily.
That's why there doesn't seem to be any true Rome-analogues in your story. From my albeit very limited knowledge of history, the Romans seemed to understand - indeed, I think some of them are quoted as saying - that all men naturally want freedom. And so when the Romans conquered new people, they often took a carrot-and-stick approach of ruthlessly crushing rebellions while holding out the benefits of Roman civilization and citizenship as a reward for peaceful integration. Rather than a foreign tyrant to be despised, then, people would often come to view Rome as an ideal to be attained. (IIRC) Older conquests would join the legions in conquering new territories in the hopes of attaining their own citizenship, and the rights and privileges and prestige that went with it.
I won't say that without the possibility of interbreeding unity is impossible in the world that you've established, but it certainly seems to make an already difficult and (often) slow process vastly more unlikely. No matter how many times Capra invades Corva, they're never going to change two legs into four, and the Corvids aren't liable to forget to the difference. Until Daddy Capra and Mommy Corva come home from the hospital with Baby Chimera swaddled in their hooves, I don't see how any "empire" can ever be more than an occupation force, looting the land until the natives finally get fed up enough to rebel and destroy the empire's cost/benefit paradigm.
That would certainly explain why the nations of the palaverse seem to have existed relatively unchanged for so long. Their borders might flex a bit, they may have periods of internal instability or unity, but ultimately the status quo is king. The three pony tribes achieved unity, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them eventually merge with the Assinians, but it seems like it would take an enormous span of time or a truly cataclysmic event to make a major shift to the balance of powers in Ungula.
...Of course, in real life, if such a situation existed where different races were instead different species, I imagine our history would be even more filled with bigotry, forced dislocations, and wars of extermination than it has been. If the only permanent way to gain a natural resource or defeat an enemy is to remove the native populations entirely and replace them with your own, then there's no doubt that that's what many historical civilizations would have done. Of course, this would be a bit too dark, even for your more "realistic" take on the FiMverse.
The second concept that comes to mind is how different every macroscopic aspect of history and civilization would be if immortal beings of godlike power truly did exist. And not in a "sit on your mountain, pick on the tiny mortals when you're bored, and breed tiny heroes when you're randy" kind of way, but taking their place in the world in a much more hooves-on fashion.
You've mostly avoided this issue by limiting the number of historical god-rulers to Celestia herself, and the number of other immortals to (presumably) the Capricious Crown and the dragons, with the dragons being distant, the Crown being new, and Celestia being a very forceful pacifist. There aren't any immortal god-crows or god-sheep mentioned thus far, and other species that might have such beings, such as the changelings or centaurs, haven't been mentioned.
I think this blog post is the first time we've seen Celestia take a direct part in warfare, and it was pretty decisive. Now, presumably your take on Celestia is more towards the middle of the immortal power scale - that is, an army unto herself without being truly deathless. If she, like presumably Discord, were unkillable by normal means, then it seems like any Major Power Aspirant would be forced to be either the most skilled at celestial hoof-kissing, or else the leader in some kind of artifactual arms race to discover or create their own divinity-petrifying weapons.
Honestly, the presence of such beings seems to make the other species seem less relevant in comparison. I mean, is it any surprise that the dominant superpower of Ungula is the one nation with a living goddess at the helm? And that was before one became four. I can only imagine what the other nations must think about Equestria's current abundance of riches, how Celestia seems to be digging little Celestia-ettes out of the woodwork and establishing them in neighboring vassal-states. Will they simply ignore the problem, or feel the need to band together against an overwhelmingly powerful neighbor? Or perhaps they'll want to get ahold of Star Swirl's tome and engage in some sort of princessly arms race instead.
It also seems like democracies and hereditary monarchies would always struggle to contend against nations ruled by immortal beings too powerful to be easily overthrown, who could always take the long view of things and make geopolitical plans that span centuries instead of decades. Your take on Celestia might be content to leave her neighbors to their own devices most of the time, but it's interesting to think of a world where such beings were more prevalent and manipulative. Who knows? Perhaps Twilight and Luna might have differing views on foreign policy than their solar counterpart.
...Anyway. I wrote all this while simultaneously trying to watch the new Cinderalla movie with my family, so I hope it's mostly coherent. Just some thoughts I've had while watching you unveil this fun new world you've created. It's this kind of fantasy-meets-realism fiction that makes me enjoy heavy-worldbuilding stories such as A Song of Ice and Fire so much.
I don't think it matters too much what nation-state you spotlight next - I assume you're going to get to all the major players eventually - but I am kind of curious if you've given any thought to the more exotic species of FiM, or if you've pretty much just focused your worldbuilding on the standard ungulates. I know that most of my own (often overly-elaborate and sometimes contradictory) ideas tend to focus on changelings, windigoes, nightmares and the like. Not that you have do a blog post on it or anything; my own imagination was just trying to figure out how a nation of freaks like the changelings would fit into your world. An established nation feeding on its neighbors? Loose networks of parasites migrating through unknowing host nations? Is Chrysalis a standard queen, a rogue queen, or the only Queen?
Regardless, I think the important thing is that you continue to take these ideas and weave them into stories from time to time. I know I'm looking forward to them. ~ Sable
3430935 and I thought Carabas had amazing ideas. Mate, I wanna see you do a blog post...I'd love to hear your take on these worlds and creatures.
3430493 In some parts of this I felt like I was reading the Secret History of the Mongols. Harsh, unforgiving wilderness home off in the middle-of-nowhere east? Check. Divided into nomadic clans based on family ties and feudal allegiances? Check. Get all united under one bloodthirsty and ambitious leader, come sweeping out of the blue, and lay effortless waste to a whole swath of continent? Check.
Now that's something I want to see in theaters!
Flock of giant angry magic-and-gunpowder Genghis Khan blackbirds with an empire complex?
Makes me wonder what would have happened if Celestia had had the Europeans' backs in the 13th century. Subutai's army might not have made it back to Mongolia in one piece.
So what's left to nominate?
The scattered Griffin clans, Bovaland, The Dragons of the Burning Mountains, Capra and Equestria itself are what's left on the continent. If I were writing these I think it would be most logical to go Bovaland then Capra, then the Griffins, then the Dragons, then Equestria itself.
I think Equestria itself does need one of these at some point. I know a lot of people don't like the history revealed so far in the comics and novels but just as many seem to like them and consider them canon just fine. Since you've clearly decided to do your own interpretation a basic history primer to get all your readers on the same page would be a good idea.
I think that Corva is probably my favourite nation after the Capric Empire. You can't go wrong with a concept like Scottish corvid barbarians.
3430935
Man, long comments like this are the best thing to find and to read over at leisure. Thank you for leaving this.
Spot-on remarks about the general immutability of borders and the trickiness that comes of different species augmenting cultural differences for the purpose of thwarting unity. I imagine that any fantasy series where mutually-incompatible humans/elves/dwarves/etc with defined national boundaries would face a similar set-up. Genuine unity and accord between the various nations isn't impossible on Ungula and beyond isn't impossible - even though intermarrying for the purposes of reproducing isn't an option to them, they're still all fellow sapients with the same general mental software allowing for empathy and collaboration. Overcoming history's hurdles and grudges will be necessary for that, though, and goodness knows we struggle enough with that.
As for the darker elements of dislocations and exterminations, they're not quite as prevalent in the Palaververse as they are in our own world's history and present, but they have happened in some places. The Capricious Crown was responsible for a set after tearing chunks out of Asinia and Bovaland when trying to reunify the historic Capric territories, and it's certainly not shy of attempting more if it thinks they'll be necessary to ensure a lasting peace for the inevitable new Empire.
Immortals were also a fun aspect of the world to slot into the politics of the whole thing - the alicorns are certainly amongst their number, the dragons who survive throughout their adulthood are practically immortal from the perspectives of most other short-lived civilisations, and as for the Crown ... it's not quite immortal, though it's definitely long-lived and got an eye on the long game. More details on that in Capra's post. All of them have their own approaches to the rest of the world, and all of them have meddled to a greater or lesser extent. Even Celestia has been flexing more of her own and Equestria's muscle in recent times, and she's perhaps the only world leader with the luxury and drive to work on a full-scale end-game utopia covering the whole world. Millennia off as yet, though she's always patient about these things.
Other, more exotic species have indeed been considered! I don't have anything especially exciting in mind for windigoes, but changelings and nightmares are things for which I possess semi-developed headcanons and which I'd be happy to elaborate on at some point in the future.
3431191
Glad the Mongol themes came across so strongly. I doubt any fiction writer alive could have come up with half the stuff Genghis and his contemporaries got up, and I had to give them some nod in the Palaververse. Sentient corvids seemed as viable a medium for that nod as any.
3431286
Nomination for Bovaland noted! And everything you mention's viable, plus the underholds of the Diamond Dogs, as well as the overseas nations - Zebrica, Gazellen, Pachydermia, Ceratos, all that. Plus any other broad concepts or other miscellania in the setting you might be interested in, as well as just the nations themselves. And I agree, Equestria should be good for a look-in as well at some point.
3431330
It's a concept that's really, really hard to go wrong with, I quite agree.
>mfw Bellbylon
ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ CAPRICIOUS CROWN OR RIOT ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ
3431710
You again? You rioting kids get off my lawn!
3431769
ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ RIOT OR RIOT ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ
3431796
That sort of choice, eh? Well, I choose RIOT. What do you say to that, you ... um. Wait, shit, hang on.
3431802
┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻
┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻
┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻
┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻
┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻
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3431849
Those tables had families, you monster!
3431850
I regret nothing.
Also, these blogs are sweet.
This is beautiful.
A nation with a history of warfare and an ingrained ability to react to changing conditions is inherently dangerous... especially if they remember the benefits of trade. Concentrate that trade to partners across the sea as to not become complacent with stability to your west and you have a power in Ungula that might very well become extremely dangerous again.
Corva just advanced to my by far favourite 'nation' of Ungula. Most interestingly, they obviously don't perceive Celestia's might as unsurmountable and that alone makes them dangerous. Their black powder technology may prove them right, even if it never comes to a repeat of Dream Valley. With the invention of bombards the best unicorn attack spells will have found their equal.
You know, this has all the hallmarks of an impending arms race, even without a hot conflict being likely anytime soon, if at all. Sufficiently advanced weapons technology will be indistinguishable from offensive magic at one point.
Thermonuclear weapons are a little way off though I guess ;)
Celestias weapons of mass destruction have not yet found their equal... she can't be everywhere at once though.
Alright, enough speculation on bloody conflicts. GREAT portrayal of Corva. Wonderful world building as usual.
"cause a ruckus thereafter, and Equestria would almost certainly breath down your back."
"Breathe"
An interesting read. Sort of Scottish Highlanders meets Genghis Khan meets Britain's imperialistic ambitions. Some comments though;
First, the troop numbers make me raise an eyebrow. For comparison, the Eastern and Western Roman Empires combined are thought to have boasted between 375,000 to 700,000 troops at their height, and the thing is, Rome was an empire with a hugely developed infrastructure and administration along with its vast territorial holdings, all of which you need to maintain that kind of massive body of troops. For comparison, the Holy Roman Empire, one of the largest medieval nations for its brief span of life, boasted a standing army of a mere 40,000 with the emergency options to double or triple that in times of dire need. Even the Mongol Horde that invaded Europe under Batu Khan is generally thought to have only numbered between 30,000 and 70,000 troops, and Genghis' own army might have been as vast as 100,000.
That in mind, the idea of Equestria mustering a volunteer army of 200,000 from a single nation that holds territory over only part of a continent, to fight an invading horde of 400,000... Well it does strain my suspension of disbelief a wee bit. In your shoes, I'd chop a zero off both figures.
Second, on a personal note, I sometimes wonder why alicorns are always depicted as so powerful. I mean I get it, Celestia is the Princess of the Sun (and why is she a princess? She can call herself whatever she wants of course, but why doesn't she call herself Queen?), but it always seems to be taken for granted that no other race has anything of comparable might. Meanwhile I sit here with ideas like minotaurs kneeling before the Empyreal Titan, who is coronated with the ancestral armour of office that renders him as the mythical embodiment of Strength, or the Four Winds of the Griffons who taught a piece of their lore to pegasi in ages past, and yet retain mastery over all the worlds weather.
On that note, I'll vote for dragons.
3431856
Glad you're able to savour them.
3431862
Thermonuclear weapons are a while off, as yet ... though somewhere in the classified depths of a few institutions for magical research, some notes have been scribed for potent and demanding spells that can accomplish a similar role. No telling what might come of those, though the notable absence of Antlertis from the world might provide a few clues.
Glad you approve of the world-building! And you're spot-on about the danger that Corva's full strength, drive, and non-acceptance of Celestia's invincibility poses to the rest of the continent.
3431876
Nomination for the dragons noted! And man, I'm really bad with the correct use of 'breathe'. This is the third time someone's pointed that misuse out. Well-spotted, and corrected.
With regards to your comments on troop numbers, you're right about the relatively small armies even the largest medieval nations enjoyed. However, I wouldn't regard the Ungulan nations as medieval. Indeed, in terms of (somewhat schizophrenic) technology, mass production, and ability to feed and sustain populations, I'd call many of them pretty firmly industrial. Equestria's own population would have always been large. It's got a sizeable landmass on an already-sizeable continent, fields made fertile and rigorously farmed by earth pony magic, and multiple great cities and a lot of countryside to recruit from. 19th century-level army sizes seem fairly appropriate for it. France and Austria in the early part of that century would probably regard the Equestrian force as adorable - absent any Equestrian conscription, that is.
Corva doesn't enjoy nearly the same industrial level as Equestria, but it also enjoys a colossal landmass, a deeply martial culture, as well as large nest sizes - a Corva whose clans arent't whittling each other down tends to inflate pretty dramatically. Both nations also don't suffer from certain cultural factors that our own past great powers did. The cultural dynamics of this world are pretty much universally egalitarian, which doesn't exclude one half of a national population for volunteering/drafting on to the front lines of any conflict.
As for the alicorns, the thought of other nations enjoying their own god-rulers attuned to a particular aspect of the world is a neat one, and one I think can be done entirely well. It just wasn't a route I chose to go down for the Palaververse. And for what it's worth, I reckon Celestia et al took the 'Princess' title as a continuation of the unicorn royalty that would have held authority in Equestria before Discord's rule. Preserving old titles and traditions and all that sort of thing to ensure stability and smooth assumption of authority's trappings, and suchlike reasons.
Yeah, Corva just became my favorite of the Palaververe nations, too. Making them a Mongol-esque horde is fitting; it's hard to think of many things scarier than a few hundred thousand giant, armored, heavily-armed crows suddenly dropping out of the sky with the intention of eating large portions of your population and subjugating the rest. It's like The Birds on all the steroids. And even if their fractious nature will most likely tear apart a Corvid Empire in short order, they don't have to last long to do serious, lasting damage to the rest of the continent. Whether they start/participate in another major war or not, I'm very much looking forward to seeing where they go in future stories.
And for the next post... how about Bovaland? They're a logical choice, anyway, and I'm curious about a few things regarding bovines in this world. What are minotaurs, and how do they fit in with other bovines? Why are some cows (and sheep, for that matter) seemingly content to live like livestock in Equestria? Do Equestria's Buffalo have any contact or connection with Bovaland?
3432166
I'm glad you enjoy them so much! They're a nation for the setting I've been keeping under my hat for a while - I think I had vague notions of them as far back as 2011 - and the positive attention they're getting is very gratifying. They're certainly a constant worry for the rest of the continent, which still has more than a few scars from the Seventh Cormaer's time. And the fractious nature of them over a huge and hostile landscape makes it really hard for outside nations to get a clear idea of what's going in Corva and what the corvids may do next. Unpredictability is always a fun factor to layer on top of balls-out dangerousness.
Nomination for Bovaland noted! Minotaurs and buffalo will be addressed in their post
Another question that just occurred to me: what is the deal with 'regular' corvids? The normal-sized, apparently non/less-sentient crows, jays, and so on that we see in the show all the time. How are they perceived by sentient corvids? Are they actually less intelligent than their larger relatives, or is living in birdhouses and eating Fluttershy's birdseed just a lifestyle choice? And has Corva's aggression ever had any impact on how the ungulates treat the regular birds? For example, are they ever persecuted, maybe seen as bad omens or anything like that?
3433255
'Regular' corvids, absent any apparent sapience or civilisation, are just regarded as animals like any other by the corvids and don't seem to have any direct relation to their larger lookalikes. Their existence does inspire some debate from academics about the origins of intelligence and the sapient species on the continent, but apart from that, nobody pays especial heed to them. A stigma has become attached to them in some parts, in light of the Corvid Incursion, and you can safely assume them cawing overhead was the cause of many relapses into shellshock for those involved in that conflict.