Aesthetics

Ceph: Illustrated

If it can be said truthfully that the civilized races disdain the primitive species, then there can be no doubt that they all despise on the lowly Ceph.  Abandoned by their dark masters on the eve of complete domination over the oceans of Elqua, the dreaded Kraken were transmogrified from apex predators to bottom feeders.

Having lost their grip on the Known World, the piscean races turned savagely upon their once-powerful overlords.  So horrible was the retribution that the race now called Ceph was almost wiped out.  Desperate to survive, the Ceph fled and hid in the no man’s seas between the Fluid Nations. There they dwelt in secret, hidden among the kelp forests and coral caves, fearful for their lives, but sometimes raiding the wary that wandered too close to their waters.

The hatred for them boiled down as the years past, and the Ceph eventually became known more as a pathetic nuisance rather than valid threat.  The Ceph reluctantly returned to the piscean homeseas, only to be treated by bigoted pisceans as vermin.  It has been a slow, painful process to worm their way into piscean life. Doing so has forced the Ceph to eke out pitiful existences by scavenging off the detritus of the other races.  But ingratiate themselves they have, even if it means being treated as the world’s second class of sentience.

Ceph Female and Ceph Male by Naiche Washburn

Check out Naiche’s Instagram page for more samples of his work.

Theology

Suminarae, the True Lie

Suminarae is a contradictory Goddess that makes sense.  She is Goddess of beauty and peace, the lie of the outside belying what is within.  Not all that is beautiful on the inside is reflected on the outside, just as inner peace does not quell the unrest of others.  That is where the trickery comes in, the subterfuge, the lies.

She espouses the lies that heal, the passing falsehoods that make up idle talk.  The perfect false self protect the flawed true self from harm.  This is the image of substance, the protection of deceit.  This is why She believes in keeping the populace ignorant, as ignorance is blissful peace.  The romantic metropolis as opposed to the true city, the beautiful seascape versus the monotonous blue, there is ugliness in the truth, and balm in the lies.

It was Suminarae that found the world of Elqua for the Pantheon, that slaughtered its indigenous pisceans to make room for the Pantheon’s immigration.   The race that loathed itself, that denied their own worth, beckoned to Her from across the planes.  They were practically begging for sweet release, and it is Suminarae that now lies about that horror, that covers it up with the lie of omission.

But the Insidious Doubt has more secrets that define Her.  Perhaps the most unexpected lie of Suminarae is that She is not whom Her flock worships.  She is, in fact, the shard of Trishna known as Tornesh, the male twin/face of the Binity of Desire.  Be it the seduction of lies, the lust for the beauty, or the luck of random chance, Tornesh is now a twisted falsehood of His former half-self, a fully free Goddess at peace with Her lies.

Suminarae, the Omission, the True Lie, the Hidden Truth, Insidious Doubt, She Who Knows, Malvy of the Deceit

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Symbol: Pearl clenched in a scorpionfish’s mouth.
Domains: Chaos, Healing, Luck, Travel, Trickery.
Preferred Unguis (weapon): Spine
Clerical Unguis of Choice: Spear
Cleric Alignment: Chaotic evil, Chaotic good, chaotic neutral, true neutral.

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In the fall of 2013, I had the pleasure of commissioning a series of nine digital paintings by Vincent Coviello (V4m2c4 on DeviantArt).  Each image has a tight line drawing, a full color illustration (as seen below), and a final background composite.  Many of the magnificent details in these drawings came from Vincent himself, and his input was spot on.  During the whole process I could not help myself from checking my email compulsively for the newest sketch or update.  I may have suffered a little bit of withdrawal when he finished the project.

Illustrations of the player races in the Endless Blue Campaign Setting.

 

This and some of his other work has been recently featured on IO9.com in the article “Can We Please Have More Diverse Dragon Designs Like These?”  His hard work and talent are plain to see.  It was a pleasure working with Vincent, and hopefully, someday I will again…

Sociology

Societies Submerged in Shadow

Just as there are great dangers lurking in the dark of the ocean abyss, there are conspiratorial organizations hiding among the pisceans of Elqua.  Spoken of in hushed tones, these manipulative groups seek power and wealth for their own purposes, and are quite willing to sacrifice anything, or anyone, that tries to impede them.  They are the shadow societies of the Endless Blue, the moving dark that works for its own sake.

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For those hesitant to read through the ENDLESS BLUE website and its in depth exploration of the water world known as Elqua, I have provided a short synopsis of the 9 playable races you can choose from in the game:

Elqua is a unique world in many ways.  Larger than our own, it possess only a fraction of the land surface, and thus life had little choice but to develop fully beneath the waves.  The result of this isolation produced not one, but nine sentient races to colonize the planet, each one vying with other eight for resources, opportunity, and even simple room to grow.

Zoology

Peel Eels — Passive Traps

Evolution is a marvelous process, systematically creating diversity in species so they can flourish in niches that would otherwise remain unused.  The peel eel is such an example.  A predator by descent, yet it lures the unsuspecting to it more like an opportunistic scavenger.

Physics

The Colorful World of the Endless Blue

“A big blue marble in the Vastness” is an obvious image of Elqua, the world of the Endless Blue Setting.  A world covered 95% in water, the seas appear as a single all-encompassing ocean.  When so little land breaks the surface of the planet’s encompassing oceans, such expansive swaths of blue veritably swallow the world into a giant sphere of blue.  But such a bias is unfair to the spectral wonders of the world, because Elqua is home to some of the most colorful vistas the mind could ever imagine.

History

Dreadnoughts of the Kraken

The incursion of the united Kraken species was overwhelmingly brutal.  Inhuman in their savagery, the massive squid crashed over the homeseas of the Known World like a tsunami.  Smashing settlements and reefs with indiscriminate ease, they were like an encroaching storm, unstoppable, spewing out from the Maw, effectively blotting out the light from above and eclipsing the oceans of Elqua in a languishing darkness.

Biology

Vitruvian Mer

Despite the distinct number of different sentient races inhabiting the oceans of Elqua, their morphologies all share the same common qualities.  These commonalities are what is known as “the Piscean Form“, and carry over from one race to the other without fail, though with unique variations.  These variants of the paragon form are used to classify the races — essentially defining what makes a species different from the others.  Historically (and even currently) this separation according to race has led to contention and violence, but supporters adhere to the mantra that facts are indisputable and reality must be accepted.

Sociology

Garment Couture: The Fashion Aesthetic

Elquan fashions favor the simple over the complex.  While craftsmen are more than capable of (and do) producing the most intricate of work, the tendency of water to obscure light and detail means such astounding detail is lost.  Clothing and jewelery with fine detailing can only be appreciated in the Shore areas, where light can most easily penetrate the water’s natural absorption.  As a result, many refer to those that wear detailed clothing and finery as “wanting to be deep fish in the shallows”, referring to the vain desire to appear imposing in one’s small area of influence.