(no subject)

Outside, the sky is a flawless shade of winter blue. There's a maple tree in the backyard with scarlet leaves, and it stands like a great, billowing cloud of fire in the breeze. It makes me happy to look at it. Also, there are birds running around, doing bird things. As I ate my lunch, I watched one titmouse examine a narrow, vertical pipe, then thrust his entire head in, so far that it almost looked like he was doing a duck bottom's up pose.

After this week, with my final paper, exams, and Stuff, I'm going to pack up. Clean out the upstairs room, start putting things in boxes whether I'm taking them with me or not. That way dad can use the room for whatever he likes. I'll probably end up throwing a fair amount away, too. I'm not moving any junk! (She says now. Ha!)

Started looking around for household items. At least this is a decent time of year to be shopping for them. :D

(no subject)

Idle world image, inspired by 'Twelve Kingdoms'.

A world of constant, overcast clouds. Atop the clouds is a shining, freshwater sea, magically suspended over the solid world. The world below is long stretches of plains and moss-fields, with towering fungal forests. Occassionally, massive rock spires reach up and pierce the cloud cover, and the lee side of these spires are the only places to get true light. Both the people of the surface and the cloudsea hew cities out of these towers of stone, forming the basis for trade and contact among the two vastly different cultures.

On the surface, albino humans, elves, and dwarves (the last with thick coats of natural fur to protect them as they tunnel into the cold, dark earth) live and build cities, mostly with stone and iron. Wood, true wood, is a substance far more precious than gold, and the Groves in the sunlit patches are guarded zealously by the Druids of the White Order. Most of the surface is warm and humid, like a great greenhouse, but in the mountains, it can get terribly cold and dark, and here live the great monsters who produce their own light, or hunt by vibrations and scent alone. High above, slender, dark halflings and amphibious gnomes sail the currents of the cloudsea, metal poor, but wood rich from harvesting the bountiful sky trees, towering flora which look to be related to sycamores, but with golden bark and huge, pale leaves. In the boughs of the trees are the villages and palaces of the citizens, guarded by elite knights on their web-winged sea serpents which call the sky and sea equally their homes.

[Worldbuilding]

More thoughts on the cloudsea world in the previous post:

* Give humans low-light vision. Give elves, half-elves, and dwarves all darkvision (or possibly batlike sonar for the dwarves), but give all four races a dazzle penalty for operating in full sunlight. Take away all special vision for gnomes and halflings, but give them racial bonuses on Swim and Knowledge (Aquatics).

* Undead become a larger problem on the surface, since the indirect light that filters through in most places is not going to do anything to the average undead. Consider a Light Priesthood with a high portion of Paladins and an anti-Undead bent.

* Conventional herbivores exist on the surface, although with a primarily moss-based diet, and not in as large of numbers or variety as real world. More goats and other flexible eaters, smaller horses with shaggy fur in the colder regions, fewer birds. What birds do exist tend to be ground burrowers, grub eaters, or predatory. Pig and goat are probably the primary meat animals.

* On the surface, most bodies of water are underground. The dwarves are very good at diverting underground rivers where they wish them to go, and do thriving trade with subterranean river boats and trade routes. Fish live in the underground water, some growing to massive size in the dark caverns. (Albino water dragons preying on merchant caravans?)

* Many of the stone spires are hollow. Water from the cloudsea enters porous openings at the top, and spills in an unceasing torrent down through spire's center, down to one of the underwater seas, most of which are situated beneath these spires. This makes the whole spire thrum deeply. The cities carved into the outer shells use the torrents to give them something approximating running water and plumbing.