Writers' Salon!

[isana]

All right, guys, let's get this started.

This is a post for members to post their burning questions to each other. They can be simple, like "when is Character X's birthday," or not so simple "how would you define the relationship between Character X and Character Y?" If there's a story you want that author to talk about, throw in the title (and some points you'd like covered!) and if said author's willing, they can write their answer in a separate post, since I have no idea what the comment word limits are.

Here's how it'll work: an author who's up for answering questions/writing commentaries about stories will leave their name in a comment. Readers who want to ask questions or request stories reply to that comment, and hopefully we'll have some good conversations going!

If you guys request stories, it may be best if you limit them to rainbowfic for the time being, unless the story you've got archived outside the comm is in a public entry.

EDIT: If it's not already obvious, you can ask authors more than one question in however many comments you like. The point is to have a discussion, and it wouldn't be very lively if it stopped at one question per author! Just give the author a chance to finish answering your previous questions, of course.

Comments

[isana]

...good lord, you're asking for an infodump here. Don't say I didn't warn you!

The Serpent Folk are born as humans: they don't get their tails until late puberty (around 15 for girls and 16-17 for guys), although just before their other powers manifest, such as control over plants, earth and metal. They consider their snake forms vastly superior to their human forms, since their strength/speed/senses are just about doubled.

Culturally, though, they're peaceful; they spent a long time coexisting well enough with humans before the Nassanians decided they wanted more territory. That, combined with some Serpent Folk who thought themselves superior to humans (and acted accordingly with attacks on villages), built up prejudices among humans. They're just seen as bad news, although it's the opposite--if you're discovered to be Serpent Folk, you'll be run out of town, and that's if you're lucky. The Nassanian conquests a few decades ago reduced their numbers greatly, which is why they hadn't banded together until now, and obviously, their attitudes toward humans differ greatly. (such as the hostile Serpent Isle to the ones willing to work with the restoration)

They still keep to the old polytheistic religions and cultures. Clothing is only worn for practical/protection purposes; otherwise, even in human form, they don't see the need for it (in the rebel forces, it's basically "as little as they can get away with").

A superstition I need to work in there, somehow, is that a scale from one of the Serpent Folk brings the bearer luck. I'm trying to figure this out, since I'd totally love for Yuyan to have one embedded in the hilt of her sword or Iseult to wear one as a token. This is a Serpent Folk tradition, unlike the human ones that say "eating Serpent Folk body parts will increase your strength," etc.

[kay_brooke]

Forgive my ignorance...are Serpent Folk based on something from myths, or a species you made up?

[isana]

They're based a little on the Nüwa descendants from the Chinese Paladin/Legend of Sword and Fairy RPG. Nüwa, in Chinese mythology, was a creation goddess (she made humans and repaired the sky when it was broken). Sometimes she's depicted as human, at least based on the book of myths I got as a kid, but her more popular form, it looks like, has her as half-woman, half-snake.

In the RPG canon, Nüwa descendants are born human, and always female. Their powers manifest early on, but they don't get their tails until they've become pregnant. Society doesn't shun them (quite the opposite, actually), like the Serpent Folk, although there was one episode where one of them was mistaken for a snake demon. They're kind of MacGuffin Girls in that whoever gets hold of them gets control of a lot of power. They can shift between human and snake form rather easily as well, though from what it looks like in the games, they prefer human form.

In IPB, Serpent Folk can be any gender, and they get tails around puberty (which is why Saith could be raised as a human up until his late teens). They're stronger than humans, but I don't think, necessarily, that they would be considered godlike beings (although in the first incarnation of this story, where Saith was a girl, Setsuko and Yuyan were going to get on their knees immediately).

Another fact I forgot to mention when answering your previous question: the lifespan of the Serpent Folk exceeds that of humans greatly. I think so far they can live up to 500 years, and once they hit their mid/late twenties, their aging slows down a lot.