The Elaphaea Archipelago is a fictional roleplay game world where members of the Realm-of-Elaphaea group can create and play characters in an interactive world. Characters and players can interact in numerous ways throughout the world! If you’re looking to learn more about the general lore and workings of the world, keep on reading!
World Lore & Description
The Elaphaea Archipelago is an incredibly large stretch of land and islands seemingly intensely isolated from any other land masses in the realm. The planet they reside on is known as Thaeria, and it is not uncommon to hear phae refer to their planetary home by name. Two moons orbit the planet where the Elaphaea Archipelago rests, one silver and bright, Tavebu, and the other an almost light peach coloured hue, Mdima. These moons travel at different speeds and rotational axes making certain types of eclipses a very rare occurrence. Mdima is often called “the dancing moon” since it tends to dance and spiral around its larger sister moon, Tavebu.
The world of Elaphaea is filled with magic and fantastical phenomena due to the interconnection with the Ethereal Plane where the Phae’s deities reside, watching over all there is.
It is common knowledge that Phae were the first and only creatures to reach an extremely high level of sentience, understanding of the world around them, societal advancement, and connection to the aether that surrounded them. They are believed to have first come to the Archipelago at the northernmost point of the many islands and eventually spread into the rest of the islands from there. Knowledge of where they came from has been lost to the ages, as many a century has passed since the tale of their landing on Tundra isle’s shores. Though some phae enjoy telling tall tales of what else might exist outside their islands, they’re little more than imaginative stories. Much of history wasn’t recorded for many of the societies spread across the isles until they formed into more organized herds and began establishing unique area-centric personalities, preferences, governments, and economies. Histories for each herd can be found on their respective pages.
Phae’s potential for connecting and interacting with the threads of the universe made the deities take notice. Though their potential was already innate, they only needed to learn to pull and form from that very fabric. The ancients bestowed magic unto them, which was essentially a way to implant the knowledge of the forming of magic into their beings and muscles without telling them of the intricate steps of the process or them knowing the steps consciously. Imparting such knowledge directly was strictly forbidden. Thereby, the Phae believed their new abilities to be directly sourced from the essence of the deities themselves and began to worship them out of gratitude.
The deities were taken aback by this reaction from the phae, and the sheer appreciation they channeled through their mortal flavor of emotions was interesting, new, and warm. The deities also learnt that somehow, the mortal’s worship seemed to grow their own strength and powers within the Ethereal Plane. They began to walk among them, learning of their stories and seeing them make advancements never seen before. However, the deities also learnt of the different kinds of evil that mortals were capable of and the pull power seemed to have on their short lives. Through ages of war and even threats and transgressions against the deities, they began to retreat to their own realm more and more.
Deities new and old exist in their ‘domains’ in the Ethereal Plane (sometimes referred to as the realm of the deities) parallel to the archipelagos. Domains are essentially the materialization of everything a deity stands for and often depicted as an ‘area’ within the plane. The reason some deities are more closely tied to certain geographical areas/herds is often theorized to be due to those areas being the nearest reflection of their own domain and closest in proximity. In a tangential manner, the phae inhabiting those areas would often subscribe to similar values as the deity they came in contact with most often.
The different members of the pantheon are able to roam the entirety of the Ethereal Plane and thereby connect with followers all over the lands. However, due to the existence of undisputed areas within the realm, they don’t tend to do so as freely and frequently. deities are the safest within their domain and it is also where their powers are strongest. The nature of the undisputed areas is that peaceful interactions are expected, but battle is never an entirely foreign possibility.
Whilst most deities are on good terms, they can come to significant harm should they take this as a given and many nefarious types still occupy parts of the pantheon. Therefore, though they do wander to reach followers far and wide and deities on friendly terms often visit one another’s domain, they are most often found on their own and closest to the herd they share the greatest connection with.
Language & Literacy
Phae in Elaphaea speak the “common tongue” and no other language really exists within their memory. For out-of-game purposes, this language is English.
Phae in Elaphaea have their own written language that they use to transcribe their ideas, stories, and teachings. This language is representative of the common tongue and similarly resembles English lettering but with more of a runic twist. Numbers are similarly transformed into rune-like symbols.
Young phae are often taught the common tongue and written language at a young age, though there may be some that are not as familiar with the written language.
A downloadable font for the runic language are coming soon!
For now, use this as a guide if you’d like to write in the phae’s runes!
Seasons
Phae use unique names for their seasons in Elaphaea. Each is named according to the weather around that time of year, though not all herds necessarily experience all four seasons.
Spring = Rainfall
Summer = Sunhigh
Fall = Leafturn
Winter = Frosthold
Since phae have unique names for their seasons, they won’t use the terms “spring, summer, fall, or winter” to refer to them. It’s okay if you slip up and use them sometimes, though! For RP forms you will need to use the official season names.
Aging
Phae in Elaphaea age the same as HARPG phae. Phae are rapidly developing, but long lived creatures that can reach up to the age of 50 years old. Phae age quickly for the first five years of their life, age slowly to 40 years, and then rapidly age again for the last 10 years.
They reach sexual and mental maturity at 5 years of age. Phae may not be bred until they are at least 5 years old.
Phae mentally and physically age at a specific rate. Phae ages are compared to human ages on this sheet.
Timeline
The Elaphaea Archipelago runs on its own time system measured by the passage of months out-of-game. Generally, one month = one season and four months = one year, though there may be rare occasions when one season is stretched across multiple months. These are often rare occurrences, but they will be noted on the calendar. To see a calendar view of the passage of time in TEA, click here!
Aging of phae in TEA is also determined by the passing of this timeline. So if the current year is 242 and a phae was born in year 230, they would be 12 years old.