"Where brilliance is good and madness is better..."
Helovia Info
Helovia opened in February 2012! We are an active fantasy equine RPG
Where once the world narrowed into naught but gray dust and desolation, the gods called for life. Wielding the elements of fire and light, dark and wind, earth and water, spark and time, they have created Helovia. The realm is set within the mythical globe of Loorien, a planet rich with all variety of creatures and blessed with all manner of magic. Originally populated by nomadic, tribal characters, they've since grown into massive empires saturated with culture and history. Separated into four distinct segments of Helovia, called "The Regions," each band of horse strong enough and capable enough, took up the power and responsibility of leadership. Unicorns, old, wise and mysterious, took to the north, hidden in forests of mists and shadows and rarely making themselves known beyond their cliffs of the World's Edge. Equines, vast, organized and militaristic, split into two, one group went north to the Windtossed Foothills and the other group went south to the Dragon's Throat. Pegasus remained nomadic, making their homes in various parts of The Wilds in a migratory manner. For many generations, the land was peaceful and calm, but peace was never the way of the gods. With a clash of argument, war and bloodshed massacred Helovia, and in the aftermath, the realm was eerily quiet. Now, as newcomers sweep into this land, they are met with the lingering bitterness of the gods and the struggle to reclaim what was lost. Nothing remains safe or certain while sorcerers and soldiers alike brood and bide their time for revenge, honor and glory.
Site Wide Plots
Kaos :: The Beginning of the End ☼ - 6/2017 - Kaos placed Helovia in a time-bubble for a short period of time, but the Helovian gods are fighting back. But Kaos is powerful- far more powerful than anyone thought. This may be the beginning of the end of Helovia as we know it.
Kisamoa :: A New Kind of Kaos ☼ - 3/2017 - Kisamoa asks Helovians to help him restore the Spectral Marsh. Which side will you choose?
Invasions :: All Out War ☼ - 5/2/16 - New layout and the brand new invasion rules are up! Thank you for your patience and we look forward to getting started with this new adventure.
The Rift :: Gods Do Die ☼ - 8/2015 - Helovia Gods are saving the Rift from corrupt gods! Can Helovians band together against these foreign deities?
The Literal Ship ☼ - 2/8/15 - Oh no! You have to pair up for Valentine's day!
Sky Island :: Murder ☼ - 10/25/14 - Vesta has been found dead on the island, and the gods have called to you to solve the murder!
Sky Island :: Peace ☼ - 7/7/14 - An island has appeared in the sky! Clouds carry Helovians from the Veins to the sky.
Restoration :: We Welcome the Dawn ☼ - 9/21/13 - The sun has finally risen on this day, giving the land new light, but the Time God and the Sun God have yet to be seen.
Endless Night :: Broken Magic Plot ☼ - 8/30/13 - The earth god has returned and is walking across Helovia to heal the land. Every area can now be considered lush and prosperous, but the sun has still not risen.
☼ - 7/19/13 - The moon has risen in the sky, heralding the return of the Goddess of the moon. Lamp trees which light the paths have grown brighter, moon flowers which grow in dark places have begun to grow and prosper and the world is brighter, filled with a new hope.
Endless Night :: Dead Magic Plot ☼ - 6/22/13 - The gods of Helovia, in order to protect the world, have disappeared into the rift, leaving the world sunless, moonless and magic-less in their absence. Only the herdlands have a source of light, but lamp-trees with glowing leaves and branches sporadically line the popular roads and paths from place to place.
Doppleganger Plot ☼ - 6/20/13 - The God of Time is still struggling to close the rift though which the dopplegangers have come. He has requested that his brothers and sister assist in closing this hole, but without knowing why it opened, the task is proving difficult. Magic still remains faulty and hard to control, but the herdlands continue to be places of refuge for those who are fortunate enough to call these lands home.
ORANGEMOON cools off the lands with a a viscious force. Colder than normal, a sign of things to come during Frostfall, Helovia is bathed in a rich tropical lushness - albiet a cold one. The coastlines of the Dragon's Throat are pelted constantly by tidal waves, and the desert climate is humid but chilly. Ice begins to form early in the Aurora Basin leaving the winding trails slick and dangerous. The mists of the World's Edge coat everything in a glistening crystalline shine which encourages mould to grow everywhere. The Spectral Marsh is the only area which remains fertile, blissfully temperature and lush.
Cotm
Character of the Month for
June, 2017
WEAVER, Corporal of the Aurora Basin, is a relatively recent addition to Helovia and has taken it by storm. Branded with the seal of Death on her chest, intrigue and interest follow both her past and present. Though she is assuredly beautiful, her sometimes sharp personality reveals that there is more to this uni-peg hybrid than meets the eye. Proving herself able on the battlefield in the Basin’s warrior ranks, we can’t wait to see her test her mettle against the looming Kaos happenings! Congratulations!
Helovia RPG was created by Tamme and Blu and coded by Tamme also known as Schwartze. All coding, palettes and imagery are copyrighted to the website and are not for use outside of Helovia. Thank you to our ServerMaster for hosting Helovia. A special thanks goes to Neo for all of her coding help and fixing Tamme's errors, Boom, for her loyal service and creation of the Time God, and to Ali for her consistent contributions and dedication.
He has done all he can as a father, all he can within his limited power, to make his son speak. But nothing has any effect, nothing can change his strange ways. Knox wants to write it off as a stubborn phase of childhood, but he recognizes the symptoms of sadness. He has failed to connect with his son on many levels, in many ways, but in this they share a sorrow that Knox can understand.
He, too, hurts.
He, too, finds it difficult to speak.
And so Knox does not fault Milo for turning away from the world. They have both lost a friend--something more for Knox, but something important still for Milo. His first death, so young. No wonder the boy is scarred.
They walk together now at a slow pace, seeking the Dauntless. Knox does not feel his ancestors as he once did, perhaps with the bridle torn and so far the connection has lost all meaning, but he takes the form of the youngest to appeal to his son's own needs. Milo knows all of Knox's secrets, all of his pain. There is a bond there that is strong in its own way, one that the now lost hunter hopes to foster. So he shows his son his magic, shows him all his power, and walks with him as an equal.
Two colts, of near-equal age and similar size, both hindered by the pain that their bodies bear in backs and legs, appear at the edge of a large fall and wait. The sky above is speckled with rain that threatens to turn to snow, the clouds create a gloom that begs to be noticed. The air is cold, the hearts are colder. They stand together for warm; they touch necks, arc over each other in delicate, peaceful, pain. Archibald will come, surely he must. Knox trusts his brother, Milo his uncle.
I think I used to be ashamed of my father. It's true. I think once I looked at him and I thought him pitiful, I think I hated him once, even. I hated his neglect, I hated his recklessness. But when that dog died, I could just never see him like that again.
You see there was, still is, something about the way he hurts. I see it now and I know it's a pain that won't leave him. For once, he's letting himself feel. I haven't known him long but I know this is a struggle, for him. I know it's a part of letting go.
I feel, I think, that it was her dying wish.
But that's not something I can never know. I loved her, but she was never mine. She never will be. She'll never be anyone's again; she's just gone.
Father tells me as he walks that he chooses this form for my sake, but I know that's a lie he tells himself. He chooses it because it is manifests the pain he feels inside, because every step sends a jolt of hurt and so he cannot forget that it lives in his heart, too. Zsoka's pain is similar to mine in that it never leaves us. Knox finds this simple, finds in it a reflection of how he feels and how he is scared to admit his world is now defined by.
And he is unassuming, too. He is unrecognizable. Only mother and I have seen this form, only Archibald is another that might expect to find him looking different. I stay by my father's side to comfort him, I let my gold eyes wander over the dreary day, and with him I wait when our walk finds its end.
We stand together for suffering, for a connection that we still struggle to find. He's given up talking, but I'm always listening. I'll never stop listening.
When he starts to cry, when his chest starts to struggle, I do nothing to show that I've heard.
""
Before the fight of the Moon Goddess, Archibald only knew of Knox's blinding magic. In the whole truth, he still only knew of his brother's magic to take the sight from others--but he suspected more. He suspected that his brother could shapeshift. It was more logical than to believe Roanne was still alive, and had acquired more shapeshifting forms. Archibald was able to put the pieces together--for he was not all brawn. The brain between his ears was as strong of an organ as his heart for war was.
But it did not matter anymore. It did not matter that his brother had--or, as he suspected--attacked him. It did not matter.
What mattered was that Knox was in pain, Milo was in pain, Loretta was in pain.
Archibald needed to be the patriarch of the family now that the brother had returned and spawned.
He would take this burdensome throne without hesitation. Archibald was the leader among them always, with or without Mandrake. The brothers had always looked to him for strength and guidance. The Dauntless would not fail the defective colt now.
And he would not fail his nephew.
Stepping through the trees, the massive stallion stood some way off. Loretta, with her head low and her eyes dull, stood at his side. Her tail hung limply behind her body instead of curling over her straight back as it normally would. "Milo." Archibald rumbled, tail flicking against his strong hocks.
Knox, he wanted to say, but he was not completely certain in his suspicion, so he called only to the boy.
ARCHIBALD the DAUNTLESS
Call out to nobody, call out to me
Chip on the shoulder, the dime in the teeth
Knox's tears do not last. The pain in his chest, in his ancestor's legs, is endless and unforgettable and it will not go away so quickly, but the tears do not last. As a colt, the hunter swallows the last of them and presses his wet cheek to Milo's neck before turning to look up and see the Dauntless' massive shadow fall over him.
"Archibald," he says slowly, painfully. It is Zsoka's body but not his mind, not his words or his insolence. He takes a few labored steps from his son and closer to his brother, unsure if he is recognized and not caring to reveal for certain who he is.
"The boy's mother has left him," Knox says softly, in a whisper he hopes Milo will not hear. Aylin has left not just Milo, but Knox. Was Manhattan's death not enough pain for them both?
"His father needs some time," Knox adds with quiet regard. Whether Archibald will assume this means their identity is not connected, Knox does not know or care. But he does need some time, and so in Zsoka's form he can admit this. Time to do what, he isn't sure. To grieve, certainly, but how? It is difficult to say.
"Please care for him," Knox goes on, looking back at Milo as he says this. He wants to say that he, that Knox, that this sad quiet boy's father will return for him soon, but Knox cannot be certain. He cannot say for sure he will take on the responsibility again, that he will be the father he should be.
"And... he will not speak to you," he remembers to say as he turns to leave. "Perhaps he has lost his mind. Perhaps he simply has no love for creatures like us. I cannot say." Creatures like murderers, creatures like fathers with no care for their sons, Knox thinks with disappointment in himself.
Zsoka draws away slowly, brushing Milo's side as he begins to part. "I love you," he says to the colt. But there is nothing but silence, the loss of companion and mate and now son, that follows him away from the falls.
His pain is my pain. His words are my words. Does he really think I don't know what he's saying about me?
I listen in silence as he speaks in a whisper not as quiet as he thinks, in a whisper not quiet enough to avoid the survey of my keen ears. They are soft, they are thin velvet that folds and turns at my command, but even they can take this hurt. Even they are trained, like the rest of my body, to suffer this constant abuse.
So mother has left. That's what father tells me, that's what I'm inclined to believe. Dog is dead and mother has left; father, in his grief, is leaving me too. But he can't bear to do it as himself, can't let himself take form or responsibility. No, let the babysitter Zsoka do that work. Let the emptiness of an already dead mind bear the pain of abandoning a child.
And the child? He can stand there, alone and cold, shivering unconsciously as he is splattered with water from the falls where he was raised to grow up. His father does not recognize these lands, so he has been told. These are not the hills they used to be, so he had been reminded. But the child? He doesn't know of this.
All he knows, all I know, is that my father is leaving me being. Perhaps I have lost my mind, perhaps I have no love for creatures like them. Perhaps my silence cannot simply be the silence of the broken and grieving, the silence of those left alone by the few things they had learned to love. So be it.
If this is my silence, I will embrace it. My mother has left. My father has left. My one friend has died; I am left with my uncle and his dog. I do not turn to watch the buckskin colt mask that my father wears fade into the shadow of his own magic and the woods, I merely exhale, expanding my nostrils and turning to look up at the remainder of my "family."
He is tall. He is a giant, really. Even if I were not a mere foal I would think this. As he stands above me, he becomes a monolith that casts a massive shadow over my mind. I wonder if there is anything more to him than this great size, this magnificent strength. And what will he do with a small child like me, too broken to train and too "dumb" to make a diplomat?
I stare up at him, my golden eyes curious as to just what he can do. What will he do with a grieving, mad child like me?
When the buckskin colt stepped forward and spoke to him, the words were Knox's. Archibald was made certain in his suspicion. He had many questions to ask his brother, but the time was not now. He would seek the broken, defective colt out in time and ask his questions. He would ask his brother to summon one he truly wished to interrogate. Nodding his great head and closing his molten eyes as the brother past into the shadows, Archibald stayed silent for some time.
Lifting his head after what seemed like an eternity of silent thought, the Dauntless looked below on golden eyes more like his own than the boy's father's. The eyes must have come from the mother, from Aylin, because Knox did not share the same genes as Archibald did to pass those molten, liquid gold eyes. Archibald knew this. He had looked into his father's lifeless eyes as he lay in his blood as a colt, Vincent shuddering beside him. The three had all shared those eyes, gold gld gold, Archibald Vincent Barret. The stallion sighed once more, lips tightening in a gloomed scowl.
Slowly, the mountain moved towards the mustard seed, each movement careful and controlled as he overtook the boy. Archibald's arching neck lowered, hesitating for only a split second, before pale lips began to groom along the child's withers. He was as gentle as he could manage, hoping not to harm the boy or his limp. The Czar had seen him move, seen the pain so clearly in the twitch of muscles. The face may hide suffering, but the rest of the body did not lie. Archibald knew how pain manifested, for he had inflicted it an unfathomable amount of times.
"You don't have to speak. Ever again, if you don't want." He started, between grooming the child, "You gain more information about the world when you're silent. You observe and you store." Loretta moved toward the child then, too. She looked up at him with pained amber eyes, and whined lightly. She was my sister. Tell him. Tell him I am sorry I couldn't protect her. She pleaded, ears lowering against her skull. Archibald, tell him.
ARCHIBALD the DAUNTLESS
Call out to nobody, call out to me
Chip on the shoulder, the dime in the teeth
Left alone with the Dauntless, I find that I once more am in the care of "family." The word's meaning falters now, has less strength each time I think of it. Does ever family love so carelessly as mine, or are there others with more heart and soul than rests in my father alone? And what of Manhattan, she who showed me the most love, who taught me the very patterns of breath and speech that I have since renounced?
She loved me more than anyone, and yet in some ways she was not family. She was only a friend, the family I chose that belonged to my father. My father who did not deserve her, did not love her as I did, did not--
I cannot think such thoughts. My uncle, the Dauntless, is speaking in a low voice, a humming, grumbling, roaring sort of drone that commands respect. I listen absently as he grooms me, as if we were close, as if he is the mother I now have lost. From where does this intimacy grow? Are these seeds of kindness sown at birth, into soil made fertile by affection or obligation? When do they flower, when do they wilt? What comes of the fruit and the grain, are they ground and spread like wealth to the needy, is this the cycle of love my father has never understood? And what of the seeds, is there a store in my own heart?
I have no words for his kindness, only a soft chuff of air leaving my lips and striking the cold. His dog, unlike Manhattan but brimming with a recognizable emotion, draws closer. It is she that I have heart for, she that I would wish to speak with. What did she know of the dog that was my best friend, what did she love of the family she chose?
I take a small step forward, bend to the malamute with russet and snow fur. My nose seeks her neck, my breath ruffles and parts whatever fur might be closest. My jaw, like a swing, unhinges and closes, a tender bite like the ones Manhattan gave me when I was younger.
Will she know what I mean, when I say this with my silence? Will she understand the question of love and pain as an inextricable pair? Or am I truly alone in this world?
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