"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.
don't get lost in my lyrics
you won't find your way out
This wanderlust was proving unshakable no matter how much the girl wanted to be free of it. There was inherently unlikeable about any of the places she had visited over the past months but after a time she would always move on. The forests, the meadow, and even the lovely grove of willows that she had loved so dearly when first she came to this land, they all seemed so wretchedly unsatisfying now. Even the people she had met, ships in the night that passed with out making an impression, forming a connection, until the faerie girl began to wonder if she were merely a phantom on this land, passing silently and leaving no trace…Such was her life since Finn and Kvothe had abandoned her taking with them her dream of their traveling troupe. Where once she had been blithe and bonny, now did the girl wrap herself in melancholy but still she sang.
Her song for this fading afternoon was a sad one, a ballad of her homeland that told of a young man who’d left his sweetheart behind. She hadn’t thought it would make her think so much of how Finn had left her but the sadness welled up as she moved from verse to verse. Innocent and fanciful as she’d been, Aisling had imagined herself to be falling in love with the gentle little stallion and his unannounced departure was so similar to the one that had been passed down in the song. Her gentle voice carried sweetly through the trees, the turning leaves in shades of yellow and orange a suiting scene for the little white lass. In eyes of stormy grey, tears threatened but did not fall; Aisling had always hated to cry, it was such a useless and tiring thing to do. The tune faded on the last long note and as the song ended her gait faltered and the little mare slowed to a halt. Where to now? the constant question repeated itself in her mind and her barreled chest heaved in a heavy sigh. No where to go that I don’t take this with me…
If nothing else I find that in the company of nothing but my own shadow, I can be silent without objection. So often I am in the company of others, of my herd, of men. Always, I am in the company of Manhattan's ghost. But to take long walks on dying afternoons such as this one is to get as close to solitude as I can.
This, I need more than I crave.
Aging suits me well, from an objective standpoint I understand this. Until the pain leaves, however, the slow rise in my height, the evening of my hindered stride, means nothing to me. Should this be a permanent curse, I will always be made a child by the infirmity it casts upon me. This is the sorrow of illness, the disease of the crippling hurt of Gods.
With the sun fading, I am made to think of that God who stood so beautiful that even in days just shortly after my birth, I wanted him. There was something like a unique lust to be something that powerful and strong that as I take slow, painful steps into a shadowed wood, I am reminded of.
I do not think anything hurts a god like that. The Sun God whose body is made of gold, the Earth God who presides over death but makes no note of the sorrow it inflicts on mortal... these are powerful beings.
I am too humbled by the hurt I have seen and felt to think I could ever have such eminence, but when the earth softens beneath my feet and I find myself lost, I wonder if I could at least once experience a life without pain.
As much as I wish to lay down and rest, I've learned quickly that the pain in my spine only cinches tighter, grips more viciously, when I move to the earth. Despite the sharpness of my listening, the wide scope of my soft ears, my eyesight cannot keep up. There is, in the near distance, a dying and heart-wrenching song. I know its beauty, I understand its proximity, but I have no hope at finding it on my own. A soft whinny, not so much seeking as answering sorrowfully, as mutually pained, escapes my lips and my teeth clack in a childlike gesture that I, with my soft mouth, have not yet outgrown. I once saw my father make the same noise, the same clattering of teeth that cries out to the world: do not hurt me, for I am but a child and this world has more danger than I ever knew of before this moment.
I only pitied him, then. I did not yet quite understand how much hurt this world really contained.
don't get lost in my lyrics
you won't find your way out
It had been a long while since Aisling had expected an audience for her songs, let alone an answer, but low and behold one came to her. Quiet and mournful as her own voice had been the whinny finds its way to her through the shadowed trees.
For a moment she stood, breathless, and waited for the call to come again but it did not repeat itself immediately. The faerie girl had been in this wood enough to know how it played tricks. Especially now, at the end of orange moon with the trans half bare and the wily wind at play. Any sound might only have been the whispering of leaves, and any path looked much the same from both directions: a fortress of solitude, if that’s what one sought. Aisling never wanted solitude, it was much to easy to be sad when she was on her own. It must have been someone. Please, let it be someone.
“Hello, be there anyone there?” she spoke into the silence, voice raised but slightly tremulous. She listened for the space of one heartbeat, maybe too, before moving in the direction she’d thought the sound had come from. She picked her wary though the brambles with care, letting out a quite whinny herself every so often and pausing to wait for a response before surging on.
She had been sad, damn it, and so had that call that answered and in her mind there could be no simpler balm than good company and that made the stout little mare all the more determined to find someone! Some might've said it was luck that she found the colt so soon, though Aisling would always name it as fate. He was a skinny thing, all the gangrenes of youth, but she was quick to notice that he seemed to lack a child usual exuberance. Perhaps the poor dear is scared, what is he doing out here all alone? Not wishing to frighten or startle she kept her voice quiet an gentle when she called and kept her distance initially—not that she would make anyone nervous, in fact she was barely taller that the young man anyway. “Hello lad, are you the one who called? My name is Aisling.” She took a few careful steps forward. “May I walk with you?”
It is not long before the songstress finds me. Here in the woods one expects eternal solitude, endless fields of shadow and a lack of companionship. The mare that appears before me, white as innocent snow and decorated meekly, defies this expectation. She finds me like rain, she finds me like the wind or mortality or other inescapable, inexplicable things.
She is small but not timid, searching but not wheedling. The company she seeks is such that I can provide, the protection that she offers is the sort I do not recognize. A walk is not much to offer, her name without any other prompting is, to a son of Knox, much more. I will not tell her my name. I do not speak. It is not as if my name is really said much anymore, anyway.
I consider the question. May I walk with you? So simple and lacking further motivation. Just a walk. As I go on long walks, she wishes to join me. I have no reason to decline, no reason to accept. I merely tilt my head, nodding dumbly at the sound of her name, and then take another slow step forward. It will be her choice to walk with me, the child who hangs his head and kinks his hind to offset the hurt in his spine.
Softly, I let her song replay in my mind. It is beautiful and haunting, like memories I cannot forget. I wonder what has made her hurt, what has made such sorrow form to notes in her mouth. Without intention, without realizing, I begin to hum the notes she sang in a minor key, one unfamiliar and awkward as it escapes me. It is only when I notice the song that I look back to her, that I pause my painful continuance to see if she will follow. The last note, trailing off, raises like a question or two. Why would she choose to follow? Why sing such sorrowful songs?
don't get lost in my lyrics
you won't find your way out
He does not answer, does not speak a single word, and Aisling finds herself intrigued by this colt that defies her expectations. Every child she had ever encountered, including herself and her brothers had been quick to chatter and quicker to play; tiny containers with boundless energy inside. She herself had been and endless font of questions and giggles in her youth and yet this little one is quiet and subdued. Poor lad, what ever has got you so done this early in your young life? The boy nods despondently, and the faerie's eyes narrow in a rather maternal concern. Study emotion, the Sun had said, but she would have gladly given up an opportunity for her "studies" in order to find a happy child.
If ever there was a sure way to banish sadness from Aisling's mind it was to find it in another. Her emotions were always flighty things, easily picked up and laid down but if there was a choice to be made she desire was always for the good over the bad. She had a drive to brighten, to uplift those around her and though she found herself jealous of joy or love in other's lives she could never revel in their misery.
He moves away and she falls in step, even if he had tried to refuse her company she might have pushed. How could she walk away now, from a boy who needed cheering up? Even if he hadn't been alone in the woods it would have been unacceptable. So she took the place beside him, listening as he echoed a few noted of the old song. An odd way to make a connection perhaps, but she smiled warmly at the boy when he let the notes trail off and looked back. Aisling gave an encouraging nod, Where you go, I'll follow.
"It's an old song my gran used to sing." She starts, keeping her voice gentle. "It's about a lad who flees his home and the girl he leaves behind. 'Tis a bit of a sad tale and it seems it always comes back to me when I'm feeling down." She lets the silence carry them on for a moment, taking slow, strolling steps and waiting for him to speak up. "I hope you've not left your home lad, tis not all it's made out to be." Perhaps she shouldn't have left her own island... She'd been wondering about that as of late. She'd struck out adventure but would it not be better to go home having found none?
"."
[ooc: @Milo I didn't realize I forgot to put it in before but this it the song she was signing.]
I can't say that I'm surprised that she follows me. I seem to be a target for the concerned affection of others. Perhaps it's my size or posture, so twisted and warped at such a young age. My legs that move slow and awkward, my back with its permanent kink. Even my hooves, feeling and looking so heavy. That sugar cube of lead, as if it might drag me into some criminal's ocean.
I do not break my silence, not even for so much as a loud breath. Every inhale is a quiet reply of its one, let her hear it or not. And just as I am not surprised that she follows, I am not surprised that eventually she breaks the quiet. She tells me of her song, of the tale that it tells. I hear no tale in its tune, read nothing but wordless sorrow in its notes. Let her find the words that I cannot; I will remain, as ever, silent. My head hangs, and sorrow fills my eyes as ever. If she's perceptive enough, if she's even looking, perhaps she'll see the grief with which I am so afflicted.
When she speaks though, of home, cautioning me not to leave it, I shake my head. Perhaps it's a no, perhaps it's just a movement. I'm not certain of the answer even myself. But it's a motion nonetheless, one followed by a swift swerve in my path. I should go home, and if this mare wishes to learn of a new one, let her follow me. The regret in her voice is not unfamiliar, it's something I've seen in so many.
I lift my gaze, catching hers only for a brief second before tossing my head towards the distant Falls and whinnying. The motion is repeated, but the noise echoes only once. This is the way to my home, whatever the very thing means.
don't get lost in my lyrics
you won't find your way out
The little la was a mystery indeed, and there was more than a small part of her the simply wanted to ask what was wrong, but he had not spoken yet and while that stilled the blunt questions it made her all the more curious. A silent child… how novel. How sad! He has not said a word but its not as if he can make no sound at all. Because surely the boy had whinnied , had called her to him, and he and hummed back her song, and with another motion of his head he gave another whinny to indicate… well to indicate something.
Experience could not tell the little mare how to proceed; she never encountered such a boy, nor had she ever expected too. Could he speak and just chose not to? Was he afraid to? Maybe he simply didn’t understand. Perhaps he speaks another language, and that is why he made no answer! A light came into her eyes at that realization and as she kept pace beside his she thought of the best way to test that theory. Working to keep her tone match to how she had spoken before, Aisling asked another question but this time in her native tongue. “An é sin i gcás ina luíonn tú sa bhaile ansin, sa talamh de easanna?” She watched hime carefully trying to discern if he seemed to understand these words any more or less than her previous statements. If he had understood her talk of homes, then perhaps he had been trying to tell her where he was from. It would be the least she could do to be sure he made it back there safely.
Her pace matches mine and I cannot help but wonder why she slows herself so for me. True, and as has already been established, I seem to be marked with a red x in terms of needing others to care for me, but that doesn't mean I'm used to it. With a mother now gone and a father lost in himself, I can remember only the touch of my uncle.
Even that, coming from such a behemoth, had felt strange. I am thankful that, if nothing else, this mare does not touch me as we walk. She seems to understand that such a distance must remain for now.
What comes next, though, is a puzzling surprise. At the first hint of voice from her lips I pause, slowing the drag of my hooves until they have ceased entirely. My gold eyes settle on her; my silver-backed ears swivel to catch every syllable. But what she speaks to me is its own sort of nonsense, something as incomprehensible as I imagine my silence is to her.
Knowing nothing that I can say I only snort, shake my head, shut my eyes, and turn away. Just keep walking, keep moving towards home. My tail swishes and my pace quickens ever so slightly, as much as I can manage. The necklace that I wear swings and thumps against my chest, the liquid in it threatening to burn its container. The hissing of blood is a permanent reminder of how I am hurt. I do not want her catering to my disease, whether that be a crooked spine or the eternal weight of loss.