A growing glossary on recurring illusions.
YVES' CREATIONS
Part of the Lightshifter illusionist curriculum at Emery Thurm involves creating humanoid and beast characters. In order to create credible illusions, Yves had learned to distinguish and show health, strength, and age through appearance, stature, and posture. He understood how to create imposing males and females for all major races’ eyes — which sometimes diverged quite drastically from the common wizard’s perspective.
Regardless of how a wizard plans to integrate his craft into his past-academy life, it became standard practice to invent a pair of characters for each major race. Students begin sketching these characters as soon as they are capable of creating grander visuals, to then refine and perfection them over the years. By the time of their final examinations, these characters are expected to be fully-fledged and lifelike illusions, either visual or physical, depending on the students’ spectral disposition.
Among his arsenal, Yves has a go-to duo representing every race found on the continent, from wizards and ker to bormen and shamans, and even humans. Except witches. As stated in [B1.C11], he does not do witches. Not anymore. Because NO.
TRIVIA
Names
Yes, you have noticed the weird names. No, this is not how these peoples typically name themselves. No-one at Emery Thurm will be able to tell you why, but for some reason, it became an unspoken rule that it is not the student illusionist himself, but rather his commilita, who bestow the names upon any new creation. And for some other random reason, Yves had found himself surrounded by morons who had turned it into a competition to give the most absurd and denigrating names possible to each other's masterpieces.
That said, Yves had gotten away lightly, as he had typically been among the best and fastest to complete a new illusion deserving of a name. It is simple reasoning, really. If you dared to give a truly horrible name to the creations of the guy who finished the assignment before you, you knew he would be coming for you once you caught up. So you better save all your creativity for the loser who finishes last, because then you can go all out.
On the subject of dwarves. With dwarves, the dynamics shift. Obviously, you want the names of your creations to be as derogatory and humiliating as possible. The common wizard has no reason to pay respect to the common dwarf.
Of course, once you leave the academy, no-one stops you from inventing different characters and bestowing your own very appealing names upon them. But the truth is, you never forget your first creations. They become ingrained in your memory, impossible to erase from your mind. They will be the foundation of your mental arsenal for the rest of your life, your reference for all subsequent creations, and the benchmark against which all of them are measured.
YVES' WIZARDS
The two wizard illusions were the first complete humanoid imitations that Yves created as a student.
His first wizard is named Atrap.
As the story progresses, information will be added.
YVES' SHAMANS
Shamans offered a significant degree of freedom in their design. You could start with an individual of any preferred race. It only took slight modifications to create a shaman who had just embarked on his transformation journey. Also, if you still struggle with anatomy and natural movement, you can plausibly cloak your shaman in thick coats and furs to conceal any intricate extremities or complex body parts during motion. Given that shamans originate from various races and undergo diverse transformations in appearance, it is difficult to go wrong. As long as all the requisite body parts were present, you made individuals, not mistakes.
Besides, from a more un-academic perspective, creating shamans was simply exciting. It took years of training and guidance to craft complex beings that truly appeared lifelike. After an eternity of theory and countless foundational exercises, of strictly following instructions and meticulously copying the masters’ examples one limb at a time, you could finally unleash your creativity. You could choose the race to start with and freely tailor the progress of the shaman transformation according to you individual preferences.
Creating convincing, interacting faces demands concentration and skill. Tairan-descendants are closest to wizards in terms of facial anatomy, which had helped when creating Twig and Mushroombird. However, Yves’ two wizard illusions had been far from perfect back then. He had still been learning. This had made the mask-like faces of the shamans even more appealing, as they helped conceal his shortcomings in skill — which is why the illusionist curriculum moves right onto shamans as soon as you are able to create halfway passable copies of your wizard self.
DESIGN PROCESS
“Mushroombird had been a PROCESS; all capitals.” [B1.C11]
While Twig was his first, rather improvised Shaman, Yves started from scratch with Mushroombird, crafting her natural tairan features first before having her undergo the shaman transformation.
His initial design already shows traces of the final bird design. Since, according to Yves, Mushroombird did not like the skulls, he opted for another theme. However, since she was also dissatisfied with the insect theme, he switched back and finally settled on her tairan appearance. When turning her shaman, the feathers multiplied exponentially.
Yves often felt that Mushroombird was more social and empathetic that Twig. She is an attention-hogger that stands out easily. [B1.C11]
Master Iridin had challenged Yves to make his next shaman after Twig an obvious female. The result of that challenge was Mushroombird, who also descended from tairan, but stood significantly shorter than Twig and boasted much more pronounced feminine features. To top it off, he had adorned her with a meticulously detailed coat of feathers.
Birds are among the most challenging creatures to imitate. Feathers, with their intricate structure and flexibility during movement, demand intense focus on detail. Yves excelled in conjuring birds, and he had transferred those skills to the design of Mushroombird. He had crafted for her a coat made of white duck feathers, complete with an equally elaborate hood. At the time, he believed there was nothing about furs or feathered garments that could not somehow be justified as shamans’ attire, and so he went all out. While Twig represented an artistic choice born from Yves’ past limitations as an illusionist, Mushroombird, a beautiful tairan woman adorned in the most delicate robes of feathers, had been a full-on brag.
[B1.C11] Northlands Desert
Crossing the north-eastern desert with Yves while discussing reality and love.
[B1.C11] AGAINST YVES
“Because you know that you have an impact on people, and the world, in general,” added Yves, “while illusions are only there to impact and gratify and satisfy you.”
“Eww,” said Twig.
“Rude,” said Mushroombird.
“Disgust is no valid counterargument,” said Yves.
“It is an argument against you, though,” said Mushroombird.
Twig had been right there. Yves had designed her while slimming down Atrap, slapped on some furs, and had been more or less done with her. Much later, he also settled on a pre-transformation version of her.
True to her name, Twig’s upper body lacked the feminine curves one would expect from her race, descendants of the tairan. Yves had sold this to his examiners as a deliberate choice to make her something of a wanderer or herder, a beast shaman who spent her days exploring, running and climbing rocky forest terrain.
He had created Twig as a swift runner, a skilled climber and an enduring wanderer, and he never wanted her to change. Her design had grown on him, and if anything, he had made her figure more athletic, and her strikingly long feet and hands more crafty and flexible, but never shorter.
“Yves often felt that Mushroombird was more social and empathetic, while Twig was the more judgmental of the two. That said, Twig was also straightforwardly direct, no pun intended, which Yves greatly appreciated.” [B1.C11]
Twig represented Yves’ maiden attempt at creating a humanoid female, and if he were to be frank, in that regard she had been far from flawless. Yves had just begun crafting lifelike illusions. Following the completion of his two wizards, transitioning to the female form had presented a considerable challenge. Rather than starting from scratch with a completely new frame, Yves had opted to utilise the well-established body of his wizard Atrap as a foundation, and had improvised from there by basically slimming him down. This is why Twig looks so much like a young tairan woman who had exhausted all her body’s reserves in an insane growth-spurt that had left nothing for her to grow into womanhood.
When Yves first conjured her into existence, she had surpassed him in height. As of [B1.C11], she stood just as tall as him, with long and graceful limbs, albeit with conspicuously large hands and feet — back then, trimming away portions of an arm or leg had proven much simpler than slenderising the intricate structures of fingers and feet. Also, it had been the year of the Tournament, which had left Yves short on time and preoccupied with far more life-threatening matters than his master’s potential disapproval.
[B1.C11] Northlands Desert
Crossing the north-eastern desert with Yves while discussing reality and love.
[B1.C11] LOVE
“The love you think you feel for a real person can be false. And sure, it can be something simpler, like lust. But in the same way, it can be real. Even if you fall in love with an illusion, even if the person is fake, the feeling can still be real.
If you really think about it, how you perceive a real person is never the same as how the real person truly is. It is what you piece together and come to understand from all that you learn about the person and experience with her. But still, you only ever create your own version of that person. So even if the person is real, with her own body and Rothar and past, you nonetheless make her an illusion in your head.”
Yves tried to think this through, “Still, if you suddenly found out that all the people in your life, all beings around you were illusions, would you not live completely differently?”
“Are you asking me?” asked Twig, “Me, personally?”
(…)
“If you want to start nit-picking and distinguish real people and illusions, then why are we here? Think about it, what are you even looking at? Who are you even talking to right now?”
[B1.C11] HER OWN BEAUTY ?????
“You are, of course, also beautiful,” said Mushroombird, “In your own, uniquely-proportioned way.”
“Thank you?” said Twig.
Yves looked over his shoulder, back down at her.
“Let me try again,” she said, resetting her pose, “Thank you?????”
Now she was just messing around.
“Allright,” Twig reset again, now taking on a more confident expression, “Thank you. I know.”
YVES' DWARVES
These characters did not yet appear.
As the story progresses, information on this character will be added.
As the story progresses, information on this character will be added.
As the story progresses, information on this character will be added.
As the story progresses, information on this character will be added.
As the story progresses, information on this character will be added.
As the story progresses, information on this character will be added.
As the story progresses, information on this character will be added.
[B1.C11] reveals that Snotbeard Ironshit got a backstory with his name: his father was called Ironchin, but when recording his son in the dwarven Heritage Book, he was too dumb to spell his own name correctly, replacing the “c” with an “s” and rendering the “n” so poorly that it resembled more of a “t”. The Prince Regent came up with that gem.
As the story progresses, information on this character will be added.
As the story progresses, information on this character will be added.
YVES' HUMANS
These characters did not yet appear.
His first human is named Iman Illu-Son.
As the story progresses, information will be added.