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Gave up on this study about halfway through. It’s one potential for how a region on Cerat, will look.

Early in my development, it had the name of Volcanesia (I know, very imaginiative.) Due to the highly volcanic nature of the central continent, it has belts and bands of active volcanoes. (Not unlike earth’s ring of fire.)

In its early history, its independent mountain cantons formed a loose federation of enclaves. Already challenging to traverse mountains were made impassable by occasioned volcanic flows, and fumes. In time they grew wealthy, with some of the greatest craftspeople and artisans. However, the volcanoes were lingering threat. During the bloody century, the lords and gentry would find themselves deposed, by hungry peasants. Trading wealth for food the survived, but the monarchy did not.

During the reform era, the new state would reclaim the old estates of the nobility, and engage in a broad campaign of public works.

It was decided that the old castle would become a boarding school for the most brilliant and able youth across Cerak. As a result, the aut’et villiage would host the aut’et academy. Often mistranslated in english as the August Academy, a name which lends well to its aspiration as the best.

Our Protagonist, K’asin, and twin K’alin spent most of their childhood in its hallowed halls, gazing at this familiar vista.

(However, same degree of change in this story is in the works.)

Slow progress today. Rewrites progressing on black rainbow. Perhaps a snippet will be put up here soon.

Poor progress today, lost progress due to synchronisation errors on scrivener. Backtracking on work I was proud of is devastating.

Mission patch for the Earth Mission to Cerak, in Foreign Bodies.

A rough mockup, which probably needs some refinement once I actually settle on the continent design for cerak, and a few other things that need refinement.

Visual study of Cerak.

Cerak’s while having an atmosphere similar to earth, rarely has days of blue skies. The constant volcanic activity, is cause for fine airborne particulates. The sky is often tinged a pale straw yellow, to peach, to a deep oxide orange or red, depending on the density of airborne pollutants. Only on rare days, can a blue sky be seen. For most sera living in the modern period, yellow skies are the norm.

Cerak’s unique environmental conditions drive a wide range of biological adaptations.

In the temperate zone of the continents, foliage ranges from red to yellow-orange to absorb a greater spectrum of light. The yellow, red, and orange pigmentation absorbs blue & green light, passes infrared, but blocks ultraviolet light.

With most plant life being in the red range, as an arboreal species, the proto-sera precursors had strong selective pressure towards red skin pigmentation, as passive camouflage. A trait that persists into the modern race. And one that makes them stand apart from their environment on worlds like earth.

Sketch of Kas backlit one late summer evening in his apartment. His horns and ears are catching specular highlights through his glamour, which Percy catches for a brief moment.

Sketch of the twins, K’asin & K’alin D’orin, after their fencing championships. This is from their time at the August Academy, in Volcanesia. About a decade before Kas finds himself on Earth.

Hello all, I’m Joe, the artist & writer behind the Cinnabar Saga.

I’m starting this blog to document my artistic process while I slowly chip away at this ambitious project. So this’ll be the place to put everything I’m currently working. Sketches, drawings, writing scraps, world building, lore documents, maps, and basically everything relent. It’s going to be a bit messy & disorganised, and probably won’t have a lot of reposted media.

So what is the “Cinnabar Saga” (working title) anyways?

At the root of it is a pretty basic premise: what if humanity’s collective mythology, was inspired by contact with other intelligent life? And what would be the consequences of discovering that life hiding in plain sight?

To go one step further; the cinnabar saga follows the story of another race of humanoid life, the Se’ra. In humanity’s bronze age, they found themselves able to traverse the stars and found us. The fallout of that interaction created humanity’s idea of devils & demons, and the expulsion of the Se’ra from Earth. It’s from here most of my stories pick up.

Currently, there are three main titles in the works, with two sequels to those main works. In the following paragraphs, I’ll discuss those titles & give a brief synopsis, and also a commentary of that work. Almost everything on this blog will be tagged with one of these titles, or refer to the abbreviation of the first two letters.

Black Rainbow (Working title)

Jack is a private detective in Oregon in nineteen ninety two. Dissatisfied with his job & his relationship; he decides to take a job far away from Portland, in the hinterlands of upstate Oregon. With the timbre industry on the rocks, and the town finances nearly bankrupt, the town of Belmont has become a ghost town. With several cold cases and too few sheriffs, Jack finds himself unravelling a deeper mystery; and learning uncomfortable truths about his own past.

Black rainbow was the first entry in the series and started off initially as an erotic literature short, before expanding into something plot driven. This is the closest to being complete, and will likely be a novella once done. It plays with body horror, transformation, unrequited love, cults, big-pharma, and the satanic panic of the eighties and nineties. It will likely retain a lot of erotic content so be forewarned.

Marooned in Manhattan (final title)

K’asin’s life was forever changed when he fell through a portal to another world. Finding himself stranded in Midtown Manhattan, he’s forced to pass as a human for his own survival. All the while finding other stranded Se’ra, looking for a way home. Along the way, he finds himself falling in love, and getting dragged into a deepening conspiracy, that threatens not only Earth, but his own world too.

Marooned is basically a slice of life, urban fantasy, reverse isekai, romance thriller. (Yeah I know, kinda a mouthful.) Working with themes of queer identity, autistic masking, religious zealotry, prejudice, urban isolation & community, found family, the post nine-eleven enviroment of fear, the immigrant experience, and split identity. This will be the first official book in the series published, and it the farthest along.

Washington Rouge (working title)

This will be the direct sequel to Marooned picking up in the fallout of its conclusion. Currently still in the concept phase, there’s a lot of unknown’s about its general direction until the first title is definitively complete. Some of the themes this work will be driven by contemporary American politics, such as immigration, legislating one’s human rights, the dobbs decision, poltical polarisation, queer identity & relationships.

Foreign Bodies (working title)

Finn Grey, grad student in Anthropology, won big. Chosen as one of a thousand students and researchers, given the chance to go to Cerak. For the first time, humanity get’s the opportunity to study a whole new world, a new culture, new species of intelligent life up close. In Exchange, a thousand Sera will make the trek to Earth at the same time. Life on this new world is a little more bewildering than he expected. What he never expected, was to fall in love with his Seraf guide.

The premise of this novel takes place a little later than Marooned, and is basically a more upbeat piece. It riffs off the space age & space exploration, and the highest aims of humanity. And how sometimes those lofty visions get polluted by more pedestrian issues, like business & commerce. Other themes i’m toying with are the idea of the challenge of long distance relationships, the feeling of never having enough time, the feeling of familiarity & alienation when traveling, and a bunch of other stuff. A lot of the visual development of this story has begun, however, the plot & story remain fragmentary. A fair bit of it is contingent on marooned getting finished.

And that’s it for today.