Etri held his hand out into the warmth of the late morning sun. The beam of light through the stained glass dyed his pale skin a mottled iridescence that framed the tattoo on his palm. "I am not surprised. It is a common assumption that carnies are thieves. What is surprising is the assumption that one would steal a knife such as this."
Adair moved to stand next to him in the sunlight. On his own skin the colorful light blended into the black whirls as though his discoloration added shadow and depth. It was strange, but also kind of pretty. "Why wouldn’t they?"
Sentinel knives were works of art in themselves. Blunt and nonfunctional as a weapon, the blades were forged in the pattern of delicate leaves and flowers, the symbols of the Protectorates who carried them. Adair didn't know much about the value of metalwork, but he figured they'd probably sell for a couple of bucks.
"They are priceless, both in being invaluable and having no value. They are so highly protected that any stolen would be immediately reported as missing. There is no resale value because of the risk of being found with something as distinct. It is ridiculous if he should think for even a moment that mine was not rightly given of me."
-excerpt from a previous draft of Colorweaver (book 1).
Concordia is the main country in the contemporary high fantasy world of Unexpected Inspiration. It's a culture of artists and inventors, and a large portion of the population is involved with art in some way, be it through guarding artists and the creations they make, researching and studying it, or selling and trading it. In Concordia art is as much science and technology as it is decoration, but more importantly it's also their magic.
Magic in Concordia is small, with any Weaver who has magic only being able to do one type of thing with it. There are nine kinds, each related to a medium that ranges from textile to culinary to glasswork to poetry. Adair, one of the main characters in the first trilogy of books, has Colorweaving, which means that he can use his illustration magic to make what he draws move on a page or canvas. Eventually he gets creative with this and begins to draw on air, creating believable illusions of his artwork.
Everything Concordians do is for the Aesthetic; from their fashion to their architecture, they love color and light and overly elaborate things. The current style is long, embroidered gowns for any gender and brightly dyed hair. Concordia is a tied island that gets a lot of sunlight, so stained glass and flowers can be found almost everywhere. Even the roads are certain colors based on the city they lead to because they've named all of their cities after colors.
Concordians are also big on education and entertainment. Everyone is taught how to read and encouraged to ask questions, and schooling is required for anyone under the age of seventeen. As for entertainment, besides the general or arcane art that's created, there are also roving groups of carnival performers. This is the only place in their world where you'll find "carny" as a respected job description and they even have a voice on the government council. Even so, there are people who believe rumors that the performers are thieves, when in fact it's the opposite. There's more to the performers than just performing and many work undercover to help the artists by returning stolen or ill-gotten art back to them.
Concordia is a nice place to live, especially when contrasted to a few of the other countries on the continent. They've figured out what works best to make their culture whole and to make as many people healthy and happy as possible, but Concordians have a reputation of being more than a little eccentric. I'll get more into the people and culture, as well as that of other locations, in later moodboard posts.
Concordia sounds and looks like a beautiful place to live. :)
ReplyDelete-Quinley