Welcome to Gaia! ::

actually, speaking of urban civilizations and s**t, I think all major cities around the world would have a super thriving magical community integrated in it//underground.

like...shopping for enchanted cloth in designer stores in dubai while you're shopping for your aunties who gave you a list of s**t they want before you went for vacation or looking around for magical treats in moscow while trying to figure out what to bring to your friend's party.

it's really surreal for mundane born magick kids to come back home because they start noticing all this stuff.

also, mundanes are wondered in magick society at for their innovation. like WOAH THESE GUYS ARE SO DEFENSELESS BUT THEY'RE STILL ALIVE AND THEY CREATED ALL THESE METAL MACHINES LIKE WHAT, HOW DOES HALF OF THIS SHIZZ EVEN WORK.

Out of the three races, dwarves are definitely the ones with the least magical capacity - they can learn magic, sure, but industrial things and such are more important to them. (I don't know about computerized lathes, but that's a possibility for the older communities since they've had more time to progress.) Technology progression is definitely more important - sure, they may know a few utility spells to make mining and creation of items easier, but in the end they prefer technology to magic, any day.

On magical communities integrated into every major city... perfect. It's actually more common for most towns/cities/etc to have a magick community than to have 100% magick villages in highly-populated countries, such as the eastern United States and China. The reason? It's simply too difficult to have a magick village that's secret in those places, because there's so many people. In less populated areas, like the western United States and some places in Europe, magick villages are more common because it's easier to hide them via spheres of influence.

Secret magick locations are usually marked by a pentagram or a symbol of equal magical importance of that area.

On the 'traditional' counterparts - that's exactly why I listed the difference between urban elves and forest elves. Urban dwarves and undermountain dwarves are the same thing. Usually, the less contact they've had with the outside world, the more traditional they tend to be. In some cases, there are tribes that have had contact with the outside world and chosen to retreat deeper because they simply didn't like it.

I have something to add about mermaids, but I'm still working on the details so I'll post it when it's done.

ur ESCUZED.

Also I guess I was confused too eheheheh.

Also in my headcanon female dwarves are hairy.
Yanno, like, males and females all grow beards.
Beards for everyone!
And therefore being gay is pretty much okay, because the genders are like meh. Blurry lines, certainly in terms of physical appearances.
But you gotta marry a lady because tradition dictates children.

Totes agreed!
Can we make this canon, oh valiant leader??

Dancing is a huge part of middle eastern elf culture -- it's not a big deal for men to do it, either. There are a lot of cases of young boys learning with the women for traditional shows and stuff. (Or depending on the area and if you're poor, desperate or captured by another group, training to become part of a harem) (A little diagram)

There are a lot of traditional dances, but since desert elves 'nature magic' is illusion magic, they usually include a lot of control of water vapor // showy flashy magic with that. The sunnier the day the more realistic the illusions. Female m.e elves are also usually better at illusion magic, since traditionally they're taught to be more restrained/controlling over their emotions.

Illusion magic is basically all about control&restraint.

M.E elven villages and nomadic tribes are literally everywhere, but they're very secretive and when they rest they hide with illusion magic. Revealing the location of your tribe/home is a huge taboo (usually considered treason), and in a lot of tribes it has heavy punishments. Death, inducing amnesia within the traitor&thrown out of the tribe, curses, abandonment (usually only with a dull hunting dagger and the clothes on your back.)

Most tribes are hella wary about humans, though there are cases of elves that will integrate into human communities. It isn't really hard, considering a lot of people wear headwraps in the middle east & kids are taught at a young age how to hide their ears with illusion magic.

Gonna weigh in my two cents and everyone else's.

First of all: Sol is essence of Light, therefore Luna must be essence of Darkness. This is like, one of the core principles of the world.

That leaves the question of course, what is taint? After a long discussion with tired minds (8 in the morning for me, midnight for the Aussies) we've come to the following conclusions:

- Taint is the absence of both Luna and Sol.

- Dark magic should be recategorized as forbidden magic.

- Similar to how Sol and Luna are opposites, taint has an opposite as well.

That's Fade, as Cielle and Holly coined it. Fade is another substance, but while it's opposite to taint in every way, it's also the absence of Luna and Sol. Taint and fade are caused by different scenarios, and I'll do my best to explain them.

(Also, if anyone has questions on Luna/Sol they want answered, PM me as I'm putting together a new book for the library.)

Taint, as has been established, is black, ashy, and flaky. It corrupts a substance, slowly whittling them away into nothingness. It's possible to slow down the effects of taint, but it's not possible to stop it completely - at least, at the moment. Blood Pact scientists have been running experiments, and that's all I'll say about that.

Taint is unnatural and should not be, but it does serve a purpose: to prevent overuse of powerful magic on others. Every spell that causes taint is exceedingly powerful and borrows the strength of otherworldly powers. (Homestucks: think horroterrors.) Such power can't be gained so quickly without consequences. That consequence is, naturally, taint.

So what's fade's purpose of existing? Where does it come from? Well, as taint is associated with Luna, with its dark, chaotic nature, fade can be associated with Sol, with its bright, solid nature. Fade occurs to prevent the overuse of powerful magic on yourself. The first analogy that comes to mind for me is that dark form Sora takes on in Kingdom Hearts 2 when you use your special forms too often - it's called the Antiform I think?? Basically it's what happens when you get a bit too greedy.

Think of fade as the ultimate debuff. Where taint is dark and loose, fade is white and stiff. If taint is becoming ash, then fade is becoming stone. Not that you're actually becoming stone, just a similar substance. Where taint works from the inside out, fade works from the outside in. Someone completely overtaken by fade looks akin to a marble statue. Also they're dead.

So, why hasn't this been featured in the plot or the world other than the fact that it didn't actually exist until 12 hours ago?

Simply put, in-universe it's not recognized as taint's opposite. It's been written off as the intended effect instead of a side effect. Since it's not recognized as a harmful substance of several spells, none of them are categorized as forbidden.

Why do these substances exist in the first place? Think of it as the world's natural way of neutralizing any serious threats. The whole concept I'm trying to push here is balance. There's a balance of mundane and magicks, of Sol and Luna, of everything. Anything that threatens to throw off that balance has to take the consequences. And forbidden magic? Well, granting oneself more power than one was ever supposed to have sounds like an imbalance to me. You reap what you sow.