About

New here? In this page you can learn about what exactly Our Earthly Stars is and what inspired it!

Pitch

Our Earthly Stars is a bronze-age high-magic, fantasy worldbuilding project focused on slice-of-life and exploration. It features anthropomorphic rabbits who channel magic from celestial bodies and inhabit a world inspired by South American geography and cultures. Two cultures come together to turn the island of Uraliwa into their new home after the rest of the world is slowly being taken over by monsters, hateful shades of the past called Umbrages.

The community-minded Hap'ti are quick to adapt into their new way of life but are relatively weak and unable to properly defend themselves due to their pacifist beliefs. The semi-nomadic Liyap'ti fled from an eternal civil war and struggle to cope with their legacy now that all other factions were eradicated by monsters.

Introduction

Our Earthly Stars is a fantasy worldbuilding project about anthropomorphic rabbits — the Hap'ti and the Liyap'ti — that can cast star magic and live in a setting very roughly equivalent to bronze age in South America. It is a setting I plan to use for writing short stories and games, and maybe more! The vibe I'm going for is something between cozy slice-of-life and light adventuring with some darker undertones and mysteries.

Some of the themes I want to explore with this world are:

• Growing and cherishing communities.
• Memory, legacy, tradition and who gets to write it.
• Working through differences.
• Developing safety in an unknown world.
• Creating and playing roles, and the limits of doing so.

I plan on starting out with the island of Uraliwa, and then maybe expanding to a fully fledged world map in the future. I will be expanding and reworking both the universe as well as this website many, many times, so bear with me through the whole thing.

I am not a visual artist so most of this project will be writing. Most pictures you see here are probably not made by me (used with permission), and you can find the artist in the credits page (ir maybe under the image if I decide to reformat things).

Focus

There are a couple of themes in particular I want to focus on with this project.

First of all, I am sick of Europe-inspired fantasy and I want to see South America-inspired regions in the spotlight for once rather than a quirky one-off side-area. I am from South America but I'm actually not very familiar with the native geography and ecology of the region that inspires the island of Uraliwa, so this will be a learning experience for me as well. It's hard sometimes, seemingly basic things you take for granted in the usual fantasy settings such as wheat are off the table here. And while I will handwave some things for the sake of having a familiar base, getting creative with the unique limitations and characteristics of the setting is one of the most fun parts for me.

One of the things I am being self-indulgence on is the level of altruism in this setting. I want to imagine what a world look like if people weren't constantly sabotaging each other in the name of profit. That doesn't mean this is a perfect world though, every society has its issues and I want to explore how people react and address them. I want to explore how people interact with each other and with their own roles.

Inspirations

Real Life

Our Earthly Stars's world can be considered as an alternate version of Earth, so much of the climate and life resembles that found in real life. One of the first things I decided is that I wanted this world to be set in an equivalent of our world's bronze age. That naturally brings Mesopotamia to mind, and while I didn't go ahead with it I still take great inspiration from it. I've been especially inspired by houses made out of mud bricks, as most of Uraliwa has a limited availability of wood and stone.

When I was looking up other cultures that had discovered bronze, I was surprised to find that one of them was a group of indigenous people in South America! They are called the Calchaquí. There aren't many records about them because... Spaniards, but from what I can gather they also worshipped the sun and had "wizards" in their society. I developed the main aspects of the Hap'ti before I learned that so it is pure coincidence. I mostly just think it's interesting that there is somewhat of a historical basis for what I'm doing in this setting.

What I would say is this setting's main real-life inspiration is actually the Inca Empire! While they didn't reach the bronze age and their most famous buildings were mostly made of stone, they are a major inspiration for the Hap'ti. They placed a great importance on their sun god, they had complex systems of labor and I just find them interesting in general. The conlang made for this world is very heavily inspired by the real Quechua language (with a bit of Guarani) in fact!

I have no ties to any of the cultures I am drawing inspiration from so I am trying to be as respectful as I can. The cultures of the Hap'ti and Liyap'ti take inspiration from real life but are original and made by me. They are not meant to fully reflect or critique of these real-life cultures at all.

Media

The idea for this project came about when I was trying to brainstorm ideas for a Watership Down visual novel, and had the thought: hey, I can make something original instead! With naked wizards and stuff! There's not much of Watership Down in the current state of the project other than subtle nods like the Hap'ti's sun god and the importance of stories, but it is still dear in my heart as I develop this world.

Also, games. I play a lot of them but I have yet to find a game that fully matches the vibes of this project. I'd say the vibe I'm going for is similar to that of a farming game like Rune Factory. The closest aesthetic-wise would be... Roots of Pacha, maybe? But that's more neolithic than bronze age. I have a lot of thoughts about farming games but that is not relevant here. I also hate the term/genre cozy and its usage here is simply because it is the easiest way to describe the vibes I have in mind. There are no alps and there is no witch.

Anyways, I'd say Monster Hunter 3 is also a big inspiration even if they're technically in the iron age (?), the non-European setting does a lot for me. I also have to mention the Dawntrail expansion of Final Fantasy XIV for including South American inspired areas, Urqopacha in particular being inspired by the Andes region.