BRING US YOUR KINGS

malepartus asked:

What sort of relationships occur between the different types of Sleeping denizens? Which ones can reproduce sexually, and what are the others' attitudes towards love, sex and partnerships? Can any of them interbreed with one another, or with creatures from the Waking Realms?

GOD THIS IS SUCH A BROAD QUESTION, I’m not sure I can answer this fully just because there are so many different creatures and individuals and ways they interact. IT’S LIKE ASKING ME TO NAME ALL THE WAYS RELATIONSHIPS CAN VARY IN EVERY TYPE OF LIVING CREATURE IN THE AMERICAS.

Anyway, we’ll separate the Sleeping Realms into three parts, north, central, and south. The north are the fae kingdoms, and involve a variety of fairy creatures. Elves, sprites, dryads, naiads, centaurs, fauns, phooka, brownies, etc. etc. The central part belongs to goblins. The monsters are technically in the central part too, but they’ll be categorized with those in the south just for convenience’s sake- So the south would contain monsters, ghouls, and spectres.

Though there are exceptions and this is a blanket generalization, the majority of northern people produce sexually. Definitely within their own species, though some are able to interbreed. Many can have intercourse with those of the Waking Realms, fewer of that number can produce offspring (Elves and humans can make babies, I think), and even a lesser percentage of that offspring will be fertile. I guess you said creatures from the Waking Realms, not just humans- but the Waking Realms is basically our world. So yeah, I guess they could have sex with whatever they wanted, but the chances of breeding are slimmer.

Unless it was a centaur and a horse or something. Or a water horse and a horse. I don’t know about that. I guess there are species that might be more likely to interact. Maybe all of the fae have a thing for horses, WE JUST DON’T KNOW.

Anyway, most peoples of the north produce sexually. The kind of relationships vary, depending on species, location, individual, culture- there’s practically no limit to the kind of relationship the fae can have.

A lot (but not all!) of northern species tend to enjoy sex for sex and not just as a tool for reproducing. I think a majority believe in love, or if they do not, understand the concept and know that there are others who do believe in love.

The central peoples are mostly goblins; but if possible, the types of goblins is even more diverse than the types of fae. They can reproduce both sexually/spontaneously generate. (Spontaneous generation as in archaic beliefs like maggots appearing in meat were created by the meat itself, and not by flies laying eggs.) Sexually, as long as certain parts are comparable, they can have intercourse with any other creature. To reproduce, there are goblin species that can interbreed, but not all of them can- and sometimes offspring will be sterile. They tend to have family based relationships, but what they define as family kind of depends on the goblins! Many (but again, not all) tend to view sex as a way to reproduce and make heirs and carry on bloodlines and not as something to have separate of reproducing just to enjoy. It’s about half-and-half between goblins who believe in love and those who don’t.

When it comes to the spontaneous generation, that doesn’t quite apply to the goblins any more, but back in the day they could just yank random human kids who would eventually become goblins and it was awesome. (Also the duel reproducing, sexually and spontaneously, is part of the reason the goblin population is so out of control.)

AND THEN WE GET TO THE SOUTHERNERS, all of which below the goblins cannot reproduce sexually and all generate spontaneously.

There’s three separate groups here and not quite as much of a melting pot of thousands of species, so I’ll talk about each of them in turn. With the monsters, they are all made by the Goremother. The Goremother is giant, vaguely humanoid, and as the myths go, she “lies with the earth” every night and about every five months gives birth to a litter of monstrous brood that have no pattern in their looks and bodies and never look like the Goremother herself. Many are eaten up by the Goremother, many are eaten up by their siblings, almost all others either starve before finding out what they’re able to eat or are slain by “heroes”.

Being a monster is tuff lyfe.

If they do mature and survive, there’s usually no sexual maturing process. If they were born with distinct genitals, they’re pretty much useless. The monsters have no sex drive and usually no means to reproduce and are only generated by the Goremother. Which means they’re all brothers and sisters to one another and would probably have some problems if they DID reproduce. And since usually no two monsters look alike, they probably wouldn’t be sexually compatible either.

Monsters also, besides knowing their siblings, do not have relationships. Not friends, not lovers, no coworkers. Monsters are isolated if they survive past their mother’s den.

Monsters don’t give a shiz about love.

Nobody knows where the eff ghouls come from. Especially not the ghouls. They do have genitalia and are able to have sex and are quite fond of orgies and humping each other and the occasional rock, but there has never been a ghoul who has created another ghoul. They believe the grow from the ground, which is sort of true, and they have no natural pre-existing relations to each other- like having siblings or parents or aunts/uncles. I have talked about before how a group of ghouls is called a family, and how they kind of set up family groups where there is a “mother” and a “father” and “children”- though gender, sex, age, etc. has nothing to do with who fills what role and it seems to be picked at random. You would think this makes the mother and father lovers, but this isn’t true, they /might/ be having sex, but generally ghouls have sex with (or dry hump) whoever and whatever they feel like and there aren’t really any relationships besides friends and familial roles for ghouls. Ghouls believe love is someone else letting you eat them. Like literally eat them. Not just eat them out. Though that might be involved too.

You know every single race I mentioned above? All of them, with the exception of ghouls, a spectre can take the shape of. There can be elf spectres, goblin spectres, dryad spectres, you name it. This would mean that all their desires and ability to reproduce would be varied and really depend on the individual- if not for the fact that no spectres can reproduce, all are sterile. And most desires are dulled when you are a spectres, desires to socialize, eat- and to have sex- are very muted. This does not mean they are completely gone, but it’s less of a priority in the spectres. Whether or not they want to, whether or not they can, whether or not they would with their own kind or with others, all depends on the individual spectre.

wow this entire post basically says ‘it depends’- Sorry about that!

musemint asked:

What is the general public opinion of the Spectral King? And on the other end, what does the Spectral King think of the subjects they rule?

Spectral denizens don’t have particularly strong opinions about, well, about many things really. Their apathetic and neutral views are furthered by the fact that they didn’t vote for the Spectral King nor did the Spectral King have any siblings/cousins/family-in-general that could have taken the throne instead to give them options of who they could have preferred as king. They also accept an idea that there is no pure right nor wrong in any given thing, especially choices. There are many rights and many wrongs in everything. It’s always assumed that an individual is attempting to make choices based off of what will have more benefits but will not be perfect.

Unrelated to where I’m going with this, but one of the opinions that spectral denizens do have is that they are BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE BECAUSE THEIR VIEWS MAKE THEM ENLIGHTENED. They’re pretty snooty when it comes to people not belonging to the Spectral Lands.

Anyway, with the Spectral King, the general view of (gonna call the King ‘her’ in this to separate them from the public ‘they’) her is that she is a tool used for overseeing and organizing the kingdom and that she’s not really an individual or a person. This view continues as long as she continues trying to do her job and isn’t lazy.

There are some events that change the view. A long while ago, I told the story of how King Ghoul stole the Spectral Crown. There are two big reasons he was able to do this; One, the God of Fools and Fortune favors the ghouls and, two, King Ghoul is King Ghoul. The spectral denizens did not know either of these things and were very concerned that a stranger to the Spectral Lands could just walk in and take one of the kingdom’s most prized icons. They saw this problem as a flaw in security, which would be a flaw in organization, which would be a flaw in the Spectral King’s reign. Her overlooking something as simple as a ghoul strolling in would be seen as laziness and fatal disregard.

It does not help that during this time, a war was stirring all up in the elven lands and as often is the case with starting wars, many peoples of many different places had the feeling that something was about to break.

They accused the king of laziness and that if she could not keep even her crown how could she keep their army safe, how could she keep her promises, that crown was a representation of our KINGDOM and you LOST IT, maybe we should no longer be a KINGDOM WITHOUT IT, DOWN WITH THE KING- and though it wasn’t horrible, with how tame the Spectral Kingdom usually is, that part of the populace’s reaction was considered a riot.

The Spectral King, with her commanding presence and ability to orate, basically told them that if that crown was weak enough to be stolen, then it was unfit for a kingdom as strong as theirs and that they needed a better icon for their realm. So she had King Ghoul exiled and the Briar Crown commissioned and it has not been stolen since, how about that.

As soon as the King controlled the problem, the majority of the denizens went back to seeing her as an identity-less tool. The reaction was much like when a computer stops working and its owner starts cursing and yelling at it, but when it starts again the owner goes back to being apathetic about the tool.

There were, however, some individuals that were impressed at her control and started to like her just a littttle bit more than their neutral opinion, and a few disgusted that she let that happen in the first place and were not swayed.

The Spectral King has that elitist perspective where she thinks her people are the most enlightened, the strongest, the smartest, etc. etc. and basically the best race and kingdom ever. However she has a DARK SECRET where she privately finds them pretty dang boring, which might be why she hangs out with the ghouls who are the stupidest and ugliest and grossest species out there.

Thanks for the question, Spire!

verhkrys asked:

For the Veritas/truth/wish tree in the spectral lands (the tree is totally a character) how does someone know what they have to pay for their wish? Does the tree go Grandma Willow (or whatever that tree from pocahontas was called) and start talking or does it directly communicate in another way? Would it depend on the person or the wish at all?

It is, in fact, sentient (though its way of thinking is vastly different from humans) and is thereby, in fact, a character! I don’t actually remember much about Pocahontas because I always thought that was a lame movie as a kid and would go and watch like He-Man or Thundercats or Great Mouse Detective instead, so it might be similar, but yes it does have the capability of speech.

Sometimes it does not speak if a person or what-that-person-is-willing-to-trade is not WOOORTHY.