"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.
Death was a strange, finite notion, and a filly only a month of age was not particularly adept with such abstract concepts. As such, when she heard that her mother's first two children no longer lived, she found herself wondering where they had gone. What did it mean to live? What did it mean to be not living? How did it all work? What happened when something wasn't alive? If they were gone, how would their loved ones see them again?
As Gaucho looked to the sky, Vinati followed his gaze, taking in the deep blue dotted here and there with fluffy clouds. She loved the way the sky looked, and it pleased her to no end to imagine how she would soar one day. She wondered if the clouds were as comfortable to nap on as they looked, not realizing that they were nothing but water vapor. Every now and then, when a storm rolled on the horizon, she wondered if her father had ever flown through one. The lightning was so pretty from the ground - would it be as exciting to see up close?
(As I said, she didn't quite grasp the concept of mortality.)
"Oh, she said again, her small voice filled with wonder. "So... they watch out for us? Our ants est hers?" How absolutely lovely! "Do they live with the Sun God, Ave?" The sun was in the sky, and so were the clouds. Clouds brought rain, so the clouds must be their ancestors, right? And since they were all up there together... The girl gasped. "Can I visit them when I can fly?" She watched a distant cloud move slowly across the sky, imagining it to be a long-dead ancestor sent to watch over her, excited by the possibility of finding them one day just waiting to welcome her into the sky.
At the news of her mother's power, the little sand princess nodded. She knew that her mother communed with the dead, but she hadn't realized that dead creatures were actually here at some point. She had simply thought them to be in another realm, one that only her mother could travel to. "Dead" and "living" were separate things, not tied in any way - until now. Again her little nose scrunched up in thought. Her mother had recently taught her that her own visions were visions of the dead, visions that she had thought were of a different world than hers. "Those who have left us," Sohalia had called the figures that Vinati had seen, looking sadly away. And Vinati had sought her mother's counsel because...
"Oh!" Vinati suddenly remembered. "Pa, I've seen Skysong!" A brilliant smile appeared on her face. "And a tiny foal, too. They watch Momma sometimes. I think they miss her." She paused, musing. If she was separated from her mother or her father - at this a look of fright appeared across her tiny features, and she moved to cuddle against her father's legs - she would be sad, too. "If Skysong's here, then she didn't really leave, did she? Even if she and Momma can't talk?"
@Gaucho - would Gaucho have any ghosts that Vinati could see? :3
07-16-2016, 10:48 PM (This post was last modified: 07-16-2016, 10:49 PM by Gaucho.)
GAUCHO
Gaucho nodded. "They do. They see us and guide us when they can and how they can. That why we must always look for their signs. They not come down and talk to us, but they talk in other ways.""They live even above the Sun God. There world bumps into ours - that how they watch us and leave us signs, that how Sohalia talk to them. But it is ... apart." This was hard to explain. This was why he left these lessons to Sohalia.
As his daughter suddenly brightened informing him that she had seen Skysong, the dun frowned. Could Sohalia invite the girl into the spirit world? Or did she have the gift herself? Gaucho swallowed. Both were surprising thoughts. If Sohalia could have a +1 with her in the spirit world, why had she never invited Gaucho? Never let him apologize to SkySong for murdering her?
Then another, colder thought. If his daughter had seen SkySong .. Did she know how it was the girl died? Who had killed her? The dun hoped not, not to preserve his reputation in her eyes (though that too), but to preserve her innocence in the world, if only a little longer.
"Like Gaucho say, they always watch us."
He shook his head again, wishing there was some easy metaphor to grasp onto to explain how the worlds of the living and the dead collided. If only he was a human with a soap bubble and some water. Perhaps he could explain it that way. But he wasn't, he was a Sultan by an inland lake, and he could find no words to explain the gap.
"So Sohalia show you other world? You go with her?"
SURE. His mom is a black peg whose name means summer (so summery elements around her? Idk). His dad basically looks like him sans antlers and fire magic. He had lots of tribal markings though.
Sohalia had tried to teach the filly of the odd ghost-magic that flowed in her veins, but the lessons were as yet a bit more than the month-old child could digest. That she saw the figures of those who were not in Helovia, the girl understood perfectly. But whether Sohalia had merely over-explained the concept of death to the child or skipped over it altogether to avoid upsetting her... well, I suppose either way, the result was the same. Vinati had not yet grasped the idea of mortality, the difference between life and death. She did not yet know that one day, her beloved parents would leave her behind on their own journey into the great skies above.
All she knew was that she saw those who had been lost.
She dreamed of helping them to become found.
The girl nodded at Gaucho's explanation, which made far more sense to the girl than any precise definition given by Sohalia ever would. It would seem, then, that when these poor souls went away, they went to a happier place, a place that would one day see them reunited with their families and friends. It brought a pleased smile to Vinati's face and a sudden warmth to her heart. How horrid it would be for them to just disappear into the darkness that seemed to surround them whenever she saw them! Perhaps she just couldn't see into their world.
"No," the girl corrected Gaucho's query, her brows furrowing in thought. "I just... see them. Momma says that she has to concentrate to go into their world, but for me they're here, all the time." She paused, squinting up at him before her eyes flickered to either side. "Like the ones behind you," she added with a brilliant smile (which, incidentally, might have been quite creepy to hear without a full description of what she was seeing). "I think they miss you."
Gaucho didn't have much time to comprehend the first bit of what his daughter had said. It did strike him as important and interesting that the young filly's magic was seemingly stronger than Sohalia's was. Or, at the very least, that its range was perhaps wider? If that wasn't the case, then how could it be that the girl could simply do what took concentration and attention from her mother?
But of course then she was speaking again, and all thoughts of range and power disappeared from his thoughts.
Like the ones behind you
...behind you...
...behind you...
Gaucho turned his antlered skull swiftly. The steel of his gaze hardened against the barren landscape behind him, but even so, he allowed himself a few moments to be sure that the two were in fact alone. Exhaling a breath of anxious energy, the dun turned back towards his daughter, offering a quizzical tilt of his head as he did so.
"Gaucho not see anyone." He began, his voice suspicious but careful as well. If the girl could really just see ghosts all the time..?
But who is it she would be seeing?
"Who Vinati see?" Again, he cast a suspicious glance over his broad, blue-striped shoulder, as if to try and discern whether there was anyone truly there. His gaze dropped to the ground thinking that he might see the sands disturbed by hoof prints, but quickly realized how foolish that was. Of course there was nothing to see. Not for him, anyways.
07-25-2016, 03:42 PM (This post was last modified: 07-25-2016, 03:43 PM by Vinati.)
The girl giggled and did a little pirouette in place as she watched her father glance over his shoulder as though alarmed. She wasn't quite sure what all the fuss was about - her spirit friends had never hurt anyone. All they did was follow some of the living around. And, really, what was the harm in that when most horses couldn't even see them? Still, she admired her father for attempting to find them, for facing a perceived threat head-on. It made her love him all the more that he would be willing to protect her from something that he couldn't even see.
She began to hum to herself, kicking the sand with her foreleg and hopping about, suddenly distracted (you know how children are). At the sound of her father's voice, low but on edge, the girl turned her gaze up with an almost-comical tilt of her head. "There are two," she told him in a very matter-of-fact manner. "There's a dark-colored mare to the left - oh, I guess that would be..." she spun around to face away from Gaucho, then back, stumbling slightly with the speed of her twirl, "... your right! She's pretty, Ave. Black, but kind of... I dunno. Light, like the sun? There are some flowers in her mane. She looks like summer."
With a smile, the girl wriggled her stump of a tail. "And then there's a biiiiig stallion, too. He's almost as big as you are! He doesn't have your horns, though. And he's not on fire." She squinted, for all the world looking as though she were straining to see into the distance, though in reality she was just trying to make out the details of Gaucho's second ghost. "I think he has a bunch of those markings that you have, too, but it's kind of fuzzy. Do you miss him?" she suddenly asked no one in particular. "Is that why you follow him sometimes?"
She paused, as though listening. Silence stretched for a moment, though the girl heard the spirits as clearly as though they were standing right in front of her. She had rarely tried to communicate with them, having never had a reason - now she was pleased to find that she could, in fact, interact with the ghosts. Mother was going to be so pleased! "They want you to know that they miss you, Ave," she told him. "And that they'll see you again soon."
Perhaps it was because the magic the girl was currently experiencing was so unlike anything that Gaucho had ever possessed that his skepticism continued to grow. He didn't think that his daughter was lying to him, but that she was being mislead? That she was -
There's a dark-colored mare to the left- and of course, Gaucho spun the wrong way, having already moved before Vinati's correction reached him. Again the dun's eyes saw nothing, but now with her words filling his ears, he imagined it.
-them.
She looks like summer.
She is summer, the dun thought to himself, swallowing hard and glaring into the empty air as if forcing the apparitions to appear. How many summers had it been since he had seen her last? Since he had seen-
And then there's a biiiiig stallion, too. He's almost as big as you are! He doesn't have your horns, though. And he's not on fire.
-his parents.
The dun exhaled his disbelief, turning back towards his child with a thoughtful, but heavy look on his face.
Do you miss him?
Gaucho opened his lips to respond to her question, thinking that she was asking him if he missed his Father, but her gaze was not upon him - and she offered a follow up question despite the fact that he had said nothing. Again the dun turned, surprise and something like sadness written on his features.
She could see them... and speak with them? They were really there, speaking to her?
Gaucho's head bobbed in response, "Gaucho miss them too-". However his sentence was cut off abruptly by Vinati's continued speech. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up slightly as if a frigid wind had just blown across his back, but of course, that hadn't happened. "Not too soon." He grunted, shaking his antlered skull. "Gaucho promised to stay around and protect Vinati. Can't do that if not here."
Though, he supposed, if she could see those who had died, maybe he didn't need to be living in order to be close to her after all.
The girl, as young as she was, had no trouble seeing the resemblance between Gaucho and his parents; in fact, she wondered why she had never noticed it before. It was, after all, the only logical conclusion given her father's reaction to news of them. This certainly wasn't the first time that she had seen the dark mare and the dun stallion lingering in the shadows of her father's massive frame. Sohalia's parents followed her, too - a champagne-colored mare with a petite figure and a kind face, and a chestnut stallion who made up for his plain appearance with the aura of strength he exuded. It was no wonder that Sohalia had chosen Gaucho as her mate - he no doubt reminded her in some ways of her father, of the protection that he had always offered their herd.
It is not the way of children to deliberate the end of one's life, and so Vinati did not find any deeper meaning to her current exchange with her father's ghosts. She did not take the commentary of her grandparents to mean anything particularly sinister, nor did she notice the sadness and suspicion that flickered across the big dun's face. She had a child's innocence, accented by the dreamer's heart that lurked within her tiny chest. Almost as quickly as she had passed on the message, she had forgotten it, intrigued instead by the way the sands glowed in the sunlight, distracted by the sound the waves made as they lapped against the shore.
"Of course you'll be here, Ave!" she exclaimed, looking at him queerly, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Where else would you be?"
"Nowhere." He rumbled reassuringly. The dun spread a fiery wing and moved to wrap it around the small girl. All the while his gaze still searched the sands for signs that his parents truly stood before him. It was unnerving to think that perhaps they followed him around - that they were able to see him not only in the moments he took pride in (and in those moments he had always believed they had been looking down upon him, from the great plains in the sky), but also his less than ideal moments as well. For as strong of a warrior as he was, the idea of his parents seeing all of his faults still twinged something painful inside of him.
Dismissing these thoughts, Gaucho ruffled the delicate strands of mane on Vinati's withers.
"Do see other ghosts? See them all the time?" Gaucho wondered allowed, not necessarily sure if he wanted to know the answer or not. He didn't really understand the implications at this point. Surely there was some benefit .. the girl could likely learn quite a bit about those that she met if she could see their ancestors ... but did they always speak to her? Did they think of her as a light to follow, or would they try and use her to return to the land of the living? It puzzled and began to trouble the dun, for it was obviously not something he could ever protect her against. Such things were not only unable to be seen by him, but in some sense also not real for him.
A flaming wing wrapped around the girl, who had just begun to grow tired of her father's questions. It wasn't a conscious sort of distraction, but rather the sort that is common in children: the filly's mind had wandered here and there, her eyes not far behind, and she had simply become more interested in pursuing something else. For example, she had planning to do for her mother's present. Speaking of her mother, it was just about time to go and find her for a meal. And then, no doubt, mother would want to fit in another lesson before bed. It was all the girl could do not to roll her eyes. Didn't Sohalia know that she had important things to attend to?!
Still, despite her distractions, her father's presence wrapped all around her was a comfort. Vinati grinned up at him, her little tail wiggling with pleasure. For once, she had managed to grab and hold his attention, and for quite a while! It was rare that she had him all by herself like this, and she meant to make the most of it, even if it meant missing out on a meal and especially if it meant skipping a lesson. It wasn't that she didn't like learning, mind - just that she wanted the freedom to do as she pleased when she pleased.
"Ummm..." she hummed, her face contorting with thought. "I dunno. I see them around... most everybody, I guess. You and Momma, you both have some of them following you most of the time. Not always, sometimes they go away. Others in the herd, they have them too, sometimes. It's like.. the ghosts come and go. Maybe they have somewhere else to be, sometimes." The girl shrugged. "I've never tried to talk to them before, though. I didn't know that I could!" She beamed up at her father, proud of her accomplishment.
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