Worldbuilding The Lost Colors of Terastrand (pkmn gijinka project - lore and profiles)

[PainterFight]

Hello! This is a thread for documenting stuff that goes within the world of Terastrand - a Pokémon gijinka-centric project I've been wanting to work on recently! Here, you'll find written worldbuilding and profiles for the currently-established gijinkas/characters!

If you want to see any visual art of them, please consult here! This little thread will be nothing more than a companion piece :]

 

[PainterFight]

Alright! About time I'll talk about aomething here... Let's talk about the world itself, first!

The Lost Colors of Terastrand (aka the official name for this project) takes place in the titular land of Terastrand, said to have emerged a few(?) billions of years ago, after the old human race were in the brink of extinction and Terapagos had to sacrifice itself.

As for the land's shape and mass... you know about the board game, Settlers of Catan? Yeah, I'd figured that it would look a lot like the hexagonal board except with MORE of the terrain hexes, and also it's LARGER. Also also it's vaguely shaped like Terapagos (Terastal/Stellar Form)' shell.

(Image taken from the official CATAN website)

Outside of the new continent's unique shape, its sacrifice also resulted in the new humans (aka the Pokémon gijinkas - sitting in-universe name is Teraforms, haha, get it, like terraforming) being born with elemental gems in their chest, dubbed "Inner Shards". Simillar gems can also be found anywhere around the earth (often resembling those giant crystals you'd find in S/V before entering a Tera Raid Battle), which are dubbed "Outer Shards". We'll get to those in a later post.

Because of the Inner Shards granting the people in Terastrand their respective elemental powers (based on, y'know, Pokémon's 18 types (Stellar excluded)), they also have the tertiary ability to manipulate the typing of the Outer Shards. as such, certain "domains" (name pending), each representing the 18 types, have way more control on the terrain than others. Conflict among the followers of these domains happens quite often in this setting.

There are two kind of terrains in the land that're not affected by the domains, though; first are the routes, which are the roads linking between the terrains, kind of like the roads in the Catan game and the routes from older Pokémon games. Though, domain affliction often happens to the other terrains even without having to cross the borders.

But the second one is special; it's a giant, walled city that stands tall above all, and shines above all. This city is said to be the only terrain that cannot be affected by the domains surrounding them. This city would be modelled after Paldea's Mezagoza from the distant past. This city is located to the center of the continent, and is often dubbed as "The Heart of Terastrand" - this city... is the Stellar Capital.

The Stellar Capital is also the home to Caleido Academy (named after the spanish word for 'kaleidoscope'), which is where most of the main story will take place!

 

[PainterFight]

All human (and human-like) beings that live in Terastrand are born with fragments of magical gems inside their bodies. These gems are best known as Inner Shards.

Inner Shards imbue the essence of a crystalized Pokémon. Their appearance exists within the surface of the shard as a vague and tiny shilouette that becomes clearer once their vessel makes use of its abilities. The abilities in question mostly manifest to them elemental superpowers (based on the 18 types), and each person can have up to 2 types, depending on their gem (and the pokémon they're based on).

Inner Shards are VERY intergral to their body, and can be VERY fragile. One can simply pull out their Inner Shard easily, but unless it's for show or typing-exchanging purposes, they're vunerable into being stolen or shattered. If it cracks, the vessel's magical energy could spill directly out of their body. Worse, they'll start losing their own powers and other traits that make them... well, them.

(I'm thinking that maybe there could be certain ways to "fix" people with Inner Shards that're on the verge of breaking... like going to a Megamythos member's temple and praying to them. This idea isn't fully set in stone though. I'll think of more later.)