Young Writers Society

I guess I should finally make my LMS thread, shouldn't I?



Somewhere inside the vast ocean Panthalassa lies the island of Vyheria. On the eastern coastline is a mountain range inhabited by massive flying beasts, the wyverns. To the north is the dense Silvershine Woods, home to the Fairykin. To the south is Broken Mesa, wild territory where rogues roam free, robbing anyone who steps within their claimed territory. Within the center of the island is the Lyecanth territory, half-man/half-animal hybrids. And on the western coast is the Kingdom of Man, where humankind dwells.

Around 10% of the humans in the Kingdom of Man have developed control of an element, becoming known as magicians. The rest of the population are normal humans, with no notable powers or unusual abilities.

For years, the wyverns and the humans have been at war. The spark igniting this war having occurred so long ago, most fighting the war have never known why they fight. The wyverns attack the kingdom, and so mankind retaliates. It has been like this for centuries.

The humans developed a system for this war where the magicians would lead the war against the wyverns, while regular soldiers defended the kingdom. To encourage competition, and by extension resolve, a hierarchy was developed, and the seven best magicians, or archmages, were ranked against each other. To ensure this system remained, the most promising young magicians were trained to fulfill these roles when they reached the appropriate age, and the School of Arcana was established.

Vyherian magicians have powers divided into seven main categories. While these are the commonly accepted types of magic, evidence has been brought forth arguing there may be branches of the arcana tree Vyheria has yet to learn of in the mainstream.


Ignismancers have the ability to produce flames from their body, and then manipulate those flames for combat purposes. They are almost always immune to their own fire, but in some cases can be immune to fire of all forms. The amount of fire within a Pyromancer varies, but the fire creation is not limitless, and if overused, will eventually run out.


Aquamancers are capable of manipulating water from any source of pre-existing water. This can be a lake, ocean, stream, strip of farmland, or artery. More skill is required to remove water from complicated locations, such as the human body. The water manipulated can be used to manifest an Aquamancer's passive arcana, capable of healing selected targets.


Glacimancers can freeze water, and can control and manipulate frozen water. Their only control over water is in a solidified form. This power extends to the ability of removing heat from a designated target through physical contact, water or not, and in more skilled cases, can be used on living bodies. Glacimancers are naturally less powerful in extreme heat, but even remote heat can negatively affect them.


Terramancers can control the earth and stone making up the planet's surface. They must be in physical contact with the earth if they want any control over it. They do not have any power over the plants within the earth, and can only manipulate the ground itself. Use of their power is known to slow down the Terramancer, leading to a sluggish combat style that proves quite powerful.


Silvamancers can control plant matter. They don't need to be in physical contact with the plant, as they can communicate with the plant mentally, but a reasonable distance much be established. The plant must be alive to be controlled, and Silvestrimancers have to take advance of pre-existing plants. They cannot create their own plants.


Caelimancers can control the air around their body, and when used properly, can have effects on the air miles away from them. More experienced Caelimancers can control the air below them to simulate flight, an ability often considered a staple of this specific magic style. This power is considered a limited ability rather often, but when used properly, can summon storms and form tornadoes, making it a force to reckon with.


Fulgurmancers can create electric sparks using their own bodies. They have next to no control over the actual sparks they create, but electricity is often a dangerous attacking force on its own. Due to electricity being almost impossible to counter by conventional magic means, Fulgurmancy is considered to be objectively the most powerful branch of magic.

Haaaaai, just making a round to look at all the LMS threads, now that I finally made my own. I'll make random comments and observations based on what I know of... things.

•Panthalassa, Vyheria. Love those names - Panthalassa especially. It's specifically because of them that, next to those awesome names, the Kingdom of Man sounds particularly bland - which isn't your fault, it's just what happens when you put a matter-of-fact thing right after a pretty darn creative one. If you have a spare name for the Kingdom of Man, now's the time to use it!

•Still on names - still very much an obsession of mine - we have Panthalassa and Vyheria, which don't relate to any specific language and seem custom-made, then Silvershine Woods is a wonderfully poetic English one, then Lyecanth with was potentially inspired by Latin/Greek, and then Broken Mesa, which is totally Spanish/Portuguese.

↑ That's 4 different nomenclatures to include in your world, m'dear, which is a lot. If you've planned to make them consistent, that's fine - but if you didn't, be careful! That can get hellish to manage, and it'll sound weird/random if it isn't consistent.


•Only 10% of the population...! Wow, Magic is super rare among humans, that's very interesting. Aaaaand they're SO going to be framed as either gods or freaks XD

•Oooh, so wyverns are sentient beings, then? Man, that sounds cool, too! Can't wait to see what the original reason for the war was - as I do assume someone is gonna try and look into it to stop the conflict or bring it to a new stage. Nice!

•So, magicians are up front, soldiers are at the back. Darn, but if these are the typical flying Wyverns, that's a pretty awful position for soldiers, since uh, Wyverns can just send stealth squads at the back and murder everyone while distracting the mages at the front lines with their main fighting force. THESE SOLDIERS BETTER BE BADASSES.

•I like the idea of resolve with the hierarchy bit, though my concern is that it also usually leads to pride, anger and inside-division. It depends how everyone in this world reacts to the idea, though. Are mages so knowledgeable that they understand the usefulness of it and use it for friendly competition? Is the competition so fierce that they don't waste time being prideful and jealous? ← Many more questions that'll need to be addressed, m'dear! Though I, uh, suppose you know that already, so, I'll shut up on that one XD

•sees Pyromancer Aaah, classics :3
sees Aquamancer Aaaaah, yup. Classics indeed.

↑ Okay, so, here's why I react like this. Okay, I'll put this in a spoiler, it should be more enjoyable!



There we go! Hope that helped.


•Okay, I keep seeing that one from time to time, I'll try to help there, too.


•Hmm... Here we have an arcane tree, seven elements, and no light and darkness involved? Interesting... I wonder if you're hiding them for a bigger purpose, or don't plan to use them directly at all :3


Anywhoozies! This seems fun. Very, very fun. It'll all depend on how you direct your efforts towards the mages, the wyverns and the species surrounding the conflict, but I sure like what I'm seeing, right now! It seems simple and effective AND NOT "AFFECTIVE", BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA, FEAR MY EVILNESS which means that you can either coat it with more layers of complexity to surprise us, or not do that at all, and polish your world to make it something solid, vibrant, and enjoyable.


Lovely stuff!

@Tortwag Regarding the different nomenclatures ---> As it stands, all names are working titles, save for Vyheria and Panthalassa. I DO know that I want a different nomenclature for each species' territory, to illustrate cultural differences. I'm leaning towards a Spanish nomenclature with the mesa, Latin for the human and wyvern kingdoms, Greek for the lyecanths, and Celtic for the fairies. The names given are placeholders, the English words I intend to adapt using the choice language themes.

- You can expect them to be on the top of society, provided they're particularly skilled at using their magic.

- Yep, that will be revealed in time.

- In the backline, weaker magicians will also be present to aid the soldiers. However, after so many years of fighting, and an obvious need to have someone other than the strongest 10% participating, they've developed ways of combating wyverns despite having no magic.

- The whole competition, and its subsequent inner divides, are what will drive our character's actions. More on that when I get to the character post.

- I already mentioned this on Discord, but I switched Pyromancer to Ignismancer for uniformity.

- I CANNOT BELIEVE I MADE THAT MISTAKE. IMMEDIATELY RESOLVED.

- Let's just say I don't not plan to use them directly at all. >:D

Thanks for stopping by and leaving your thoughts! I've still got your thread open in a tab, and I intend to drop by as well.

@Sheyren You got it! Well, that's why the reminder's there, m'dear - but eh, I trust that you'll know what to do once you get the hang of your story, so, y'know.

•Oooh! Nice nomenclature choices! That'll make for interesting cultural differences later on. Good luck with that!

•They better be on top... it's really either that, or they're persecuted, YAY? X-MEN

•THEY BETTER HAVE. We, uh, seriously need badass, super acrobatic soldiers alongside mages, or simply, those with not enough magic to use magic alone combine in with swordplay because it's all they have left, and boom, it answers the need for quality of defence in the rear - MAGIC SOLDIERS.

•Gotcha. I shall wait for those character pages, then!

•'Kay! Latin it is, then.

•BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

•:3 Goodie.


Please do! Would be my pleasure to see you there, m'dear!

Hey there! What's up what's up, I'm here to drop in and toss a bit of feedback on this thread from the viewpoint of someone with no familiarity with this idea. Lol. I'll probably end up cobbling together questions as I go.

1- I just wanted to say that I really really love the name Panthalassa.

The spark igniting this war having occurred so long ago, most fighting the war have never known why they fight. The wyverns attack the kingdom, and so mankind retaliates.

2- I'm sure this is the Kingdom of Man's reasoning, but... what's the wyverns' reasoning? It would probably go more like "they keep attacking us, so we have to retaliate". Thus more fighting and whatnot but... Definitely make sure that even if you can't show the conflict from both sides, just show us the other side and let us draw conclusions from that.

3- Definitely definitely watch your languages. I know Tort already touched on it and you've said you're looking to change it all, but I've got a bit more to say.

- "Fairy" is not actually a Celtic word in the least. It comes from Old French "faierie" meaning "witchcraft", where "faie" was a wise woman or witch. If you're looking to draw from Celtic languages... good luck finding a historical equivalent! A lot of Celtic language and culture was completely destroyed by the Romans, and what wasn't destroyed is basically what's survived today (and even that's been converted to Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant).

I'd also recommend checking out Celtiberian history if you're into that. They're the people who gave Paris, and a lot of places in Spain, their names!

While sometimes language mixing like that can be done really, really well, you'll definitely have to keep an eye on it. Like, how did all these Earth languages develop so closely to each other without one wiping all the others out?

How did modern Spanish/Portuguese develop at the same time as Greek and Latin without any Arabic influences (there are a LOT of Arabic loanwords in Spanish)? Are you using Spain Spanish, Renaissance Spanish, Mexican Spanish...? Brazilian Portuguese? Rio Brazilian Portuguese?

Does Italian also exist? Etruscan? (Our word for "person" most likely comes from Etruscan "phersu", mask or actor, through Latin "persona".)

Why do wyverns and men speak the same language? Do wyverns speak the same way as everyone else? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to have a different, draconic language that's easier to speak with their altered facial structure?

Playing with languages is difficult because languages also inform, and are informed by, culture. Develop them how they'd make sense to develop -- this is a first draft, so have fun with it, ofc, but keep in mind that you'll have to edit stuff like this in a future draft anyway, so why not at least start to figure it out now?

Like, did the Lyecanths name the ocean and that's why it's Panthalassa? Why wouldn't the men and wyverns call it Maria Omnia or something better conjugated than that? Why wouldn't the Fairykin call it an Irish or Gaelic equivalent? Were the Lyecanths there first and that's why? Did their ancestors come to Vyheria before anyone else lived there, or did they map the ocean first?

I know I'm quibbling an awful lot over language, but it really does inform how your reader perceives your piece. There's a lot to think about when you mix languages like this, especially when you straight-up lift from recognizable real-world equivalents. If you called the ocean like, the Sea Of All Seas or something, I'd accept that it existed for me in English like it exists for them in whatever language they speak.

Look at your book kind of like a translation of the language your fantasy people speak. In Game of Thrones they aren't speaking English, of course, they're speaking Westerosi (which is probably close to English given how it's thematically based on English history), and most of the place names at least (Winterfell, Riverrun, King's Landing, Casterly Rock, the Wall) have been basically "translated" into English because those are just what they're called in the native language. It's not a perfect example, but it works.

Use languages that make sense for theme, of course, or that you just think are cool, but think about how those languages developed, what languages fed into them as they developed (ex. Latin and Etruscan), and what culture they developed into (and developed from them).

Also -- on the topic of using Spanish for your rogues and bandits area... why? Because Old West aesthetic? Why are your Spanish-speaking people reduced to being criminals and thieves? That's most likely going to draw on racist American tropes of the thieving Hispanic guy, and I'm hesitant about that choice. They could just as easily speak Latin the same as your main culture, or French, or English, or German, or anything that doesn't feed into racial stereotypes and tropes.

Whoops that was long!

Don't think I'm not excited to read this, though! I'm so eager to see this hit the page. Best of luck writing!

@Lareine Thanks for stopping by!

1. Thank you!

2. Inevitably, the story will end up in a place where the war is explained from both sides, wyvern and human. They will have very different ways of responding to the same thing, but I'll keep that a secret and not spoil too much.

3. Huh, that's interesting. I had always heard that fairies were of Western European origin, but had been told they were celtic. I'll have to look into that as I'm developing the fairy society.

As for languages of different races, the main cast will at certain points in the story be travelling between territories, and for the sake of not making interactions not be the most slow-paced, complicating thing possible, all societies will speak the same language.

However, you bring up the good point that it would be odd to have names in a unique language, but have them all speaking the same language. Which is why I think that each society will have a set of terms in their base language, which they use on occasion while still speaking the same form on English. That would also answer your question about how these languages could develop beside each other.

As for the choice of Spanish being the focused language-theme in the mesa, the choice was made based on the fact that mesas are a Spanish enviromental feature. Throughout the story, the inhabitants will a) speak primarily English, as mentioned before, and b) will be portrayed as competent, able to fend for themselves in a society that's fallen apart from the war. I don't believe that it will come across as racist.

Again, thanks for stopping by, and thanks for the input! I'm glad your eager to see this idea on paper!

Oops more questions!

1- Doesn't answer the developmental question. While it's cool that you're coming up with a set of terms to use, there should be loanwords happening between these languages, there should be ways for them to interact linguistically that, historically, these languages... kind of did? But really, it requires a bit more thought than that. Check out the history of how each language developed, any loanwords it has, how the cultures interacted with each other -- it's a lot more complex than it looks to just "mix languages".

2- Mesas aren't a "Spanish" environmental feature per se! The name is Spanish, yes, but that's the American English form of the word -- other names include "table", "butte", and "plateau". Yep, all similar things! You could easily call it "Broken Plateau" and have them speak French or English.

Also, while they do exist in Spain, I think you're thinking specifically of Mexico and the American Southwest here, and 1- that's actually the land of various indigenous peoples, so Spanish is an adopted language there, and 2- that wouldn't be a "Spanish" environmental feature but simply a feature of arid land or desert. Any place that has arid land can have a mesa or plateau.

I understand that you intend to portray these people as fending for themselves, but I'm still concerned that for your only society of rogues, implying thieving and banditry, you chose the language of people who are oft maligned as criminals or stereotypically portrayed as such in modern cultures. (Mexican outlaws, anyone?)

Even if your characters primarily speak English in the story, you are still coding them as Hispanic, and that can lead to problems -- especially if you code them as Latinx. (Again, Mexican outlaws.)

Of course, I'm just spitballing. Best of luck!

Whoops, I can't forget to respond!

@Lareine It's a good point to go wider exploring, but ultimately I don't see the cultures having much influence by actual language in any way other than their names having basis in the choice language. While developing the cultures at a deep level like that would be interesting, I don't see it as necessary for telling the story I want to tell, so I want to prevent it from clogging the plot drain.

As for the mesa, while they are American, the cultures of communities surrounding them stick the Mexican roots that brought them about.

Also, by technicality, a mesa is different from a plateau and a butte. Buttes are much smaller, and plateaus are much longer, and for the sake of the island's size, a plateau could not realistically fit, and a butte would be too small for the civilization.

Overall, I'm pretty set on the Spanish influence in the naming of the mesa. I don't believe that when I write it down, it will come across as making a statement about a group of people (just because they're rogues and bandits doesn't mean they're bad people, for an example). I don't feel like a Latino reading this story would see it as me insulting them or calling them all thieves or whatnot, because ultimately the culture won't be stressed on enough. If I'm wrong, and someone of Latino heritage reading the draft complains, I will reconsider.

Thanks for the thoughts! I'll be posting the list of characters soon, but there's a lot to jot down.