I'm repulsed by the 'essayification' and 'wikification' of fiction in general, and this is not something I'd normally consider releasing. However, after a long talk with a person whose judgement I trust, given the nature of this ongoing project, I've decided a good compromise for people who actually enjoy this sort of presentation is, like the history series, to present it in-universe as a document, and therefore lend it a tiny bit of the literary worth it would otherwise lack. That being said, this is not the way this civilization should be encountered for the first time- this should be seen as a supplemental presentation. If you have yet to listen to He Who Thunders, a novel entirely set among and about Xoloxaitians, it is available for free, like all my work, as an audiobook here: https://youtu.be/yRDaiblgHDg This work was pieced together from my own personal notes, and I've been careful to remove details I think would get a deep treatment in future novels or short stories. You can see a small example of these in the Robert E Howard Stygian Sidetracks I put out a while back reading about Khandar from one of these journals. I already have these notebooks filled for all twelve of the kindreds, so the next countries on the list will be the Duumvirate of Lautan, then Gunug, as featured in Solar Tide. As my plans stand, I will only release these anthropological, in-universe presentations after a given civilization has been featured in its own novel. I am not a visual artist. All images were either (very poorly) smudge painted by me after Frankenstein-ing them together in GIMP, were made in Wonderdraft as maps, or are pictures taken of landscapes/items I think fit the settings being described well. The images should not be taken as gospel- the focus of the writing is the writing, as that's my pursuit, not visual art. I only toss these things together to give visual people something to look at. Always take something I've described much more seriously than something I've shoddily illustrated. Moreover, this is a living setting in the sense I'm still working on and in it, and will continue to do so as long as I live. I'm constantly tweaking and shifting things to be better in line with the in-universe cultures as they develop, doing everything I can to make them feel alien to a modern audience, and yet relatable enough to serves as good windows on the world. I'm aware there are very small inconsistencies in the setting over the years, but these are choices of alteration I have made, and things won't be standardized and finalized until, in all likelihood, I'm dead and can't workshop them anymore. Installments of the history/mythology series (to be continued this year) can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLurTA68FnURj0HcRzXHA9w8UPZYoilmCq Better-quality maps, as well as rough mockups of a lot of the kindreds, etc, can be found in the discord. For my own sanity, I do not read comments anymore save for Stygian Sidetracks member's early releases, just to show appreciation to them. That said, anyone can always contact me by Email, Discord, or Patreon (as a free follower) should you want to get back in touch with me, I check them a couple times a week generally. Thank all of you for listening, if you did- it's always heartening there are still some people out there who enjoy stuff like this.
