Kortiki town

http://felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fairy_kingdom

I think this is an important zone that need to be developed a bit more ^^
After all this cohabitation between fairies and humans on the sole basis that eating them there is "rude" is pretty unique and can lead to all sort of interesting social interractions, customs and such.
If you have ideas about the town please post them here

When I first read about this. I thought it would be very interesting to develop some kind of school system within the town that humans and fairies both attend too. I think it can open up a lots of stories and interaction between humans and fairies. With a fairy eating someone on school grounds, since its seen as "rude" it can lead to some kind of detention or what kind of drama/romance can happen during school when predators/prey are both in the same class lol. But yea I don't have much to go on, this is just first thoughts that come to mind, feel free to add to this : D

Out of curiosity, the whole "friends don't get eaten" thing still exists outside the city boundary, right? I can understand a fairy eating a bare acquaintance outside the town, but would real friends be on the menu the minute they stepped outside the town's area?

FalconJudge wrote:

Out of curiosity, the whole "friends don't get eaten" thing still exists outside the city boundary, right? I can understand a fairy eating a bare acquaintance outside the town, but would real friends be on the menu the minute they stepped outside the town's area?

Your question answered itself.

They could eat a friend outside the town without getting in trouble, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's either likely or well-tolerated (now, another Fairy eating your friend, that's something else entirely).

And I can't see the "eat human, get detention" idea working that well considering it'd basically be the same as going "Human blasts through Fairy with lightning bolt? Detention!" Same end result (classmate dead), but I imagine that the latter would lead to the person being put on trial / exiled. Of course, the law seems to heavily favor / bias Fairies, so if they had an excuse to eat you, I can see it then. "Spit Johnny out this instant!" "He threw a spitball at me!" "Well I guess he shouldn't have been rude if he didn't want you to be rude right back!"

As for development, I imagine a Waywatcher / Road Warden-style group in the city made up predominantly of demi-humans but a few Fairies as well. What they do is make sure that those in town don't get jumped the moment they leave town, and allow people to actually have a chance of entering / leaving (guiding lost stragglers to the city, dealing with Gate Guards who insist the toll for demi-humans is half their companions for entry, and half again for their gear, etcetera).

I see friendship as working pretty much the same way as anywhere else really, and friends don't let friends eat friends! (Generally... Some exceptions might exist, I mean we are dealing Fairies here, after all )
I'd imagine humans near the town would be somewhat safe-ish from getting eaten if they have Fairy friends. It easily could happen with no direct negative consequences to the Fairy doing the eating, but I always pictured them as being inherently "nice" to other Fairies for the most part, and that they wouldn't want to make another Fairy sad/upset just for a snack.
In that line of thought, perhaps the Fairies that live in Kortiki have a way of marking their demi-human friends? A token of some sort, or even a magical mark/tattoo that identifies them and acts as a "Please don't eat my friend!" message to other Fairies. It could even be enchanted to 'mark' any Fairy that eats said demi-human for a while, allowing for some level of accountability to Fairies who eat residents as they leave or enter town, albeit only the ones who have received a mark/token from a Fairy...

I've often wondered just how rude Fairies in Kortiki consider eating a human is. Is it, like, smacking a random passer-by in the face rude? bad-manners rude? If a Fairy gets seen by others eating some human unprovoked, how would other Fairies react? Would they demand that the offender let the human out? I think that 'extremely rude' should be a bit better defined, here...

And there needs to be something that helps humans and the like enter and leave the town, as the sheer concentration of Fairies on the outskirts would make entering and leaving on your own as close to literally impossible as I can imagine... I think Malahite is onto something with his Road Warden idea, and having Fairies be part of the group got me to thinking... Wouldn't the concentration of Fairies that simply don't see humans as food regardless of location (e.g. Aya) be much higher in Kortiki? And if a non-negligible percentage (10-20% maybe?) of the town's Fairies think like that, maybe the others would be less inclined to prey on travelers near the town. If that were the case, then as the concentration of Fairies goes up as you draw nearer to the town, the odds that a Fairy would eat you goes down, and the odds that a Fairy would actually help you instead goes up, making the outskirts of the town about as (but certainly no less) dangerous than the rest of the Fairy kingdom. Just a thought...

More to come if I think of anything...

Alright a quick idea...

Head of the household:
The expression, "I wear the pants in the house" takes on a different meaning in Kortiki town. While it's used to declare one's authority in some cultures, in a place where the land is more or less owned by nudists it means a person has little to no authority at all. To wear pants might indicate someone is insecure or conservative, two qualities that most fairies don't care much for. They may wear clothes to make persons from others cultures more comfortable but the fairy will feel as if they're lowering themselves by doing so even if they act as if it doesn't bother them at all. The bottom line is, being the one who wears the pants in a Kortikian home is not something to brag about.

I think this is a great idea. A town like this could lead to some hilarious storytelling.

hahaha that's a fun twist XD

Well in my mind Kortiki is mostly accessible through portals or if you know a fairy or manage to have one help you. Reaching it at foot would be very dangerous I think.
As for friends, well fairies would basically behave the normal way outside the town. if they see you as a friend in Kortiki, they wouldn't change their way once outside. Of course you would have to make sure the fairy truly see you as a friend first but this is not that difficult with fairies.
And yeah education inside the town is another fascinating topic

The problem with accessing Kortiki is that using portals is risky, since most of them are wild and could take you virtually anywhere. I highly doubt a lot of people are willing to gamble on jumping in a warp zone that suddenly appeared in front of you. Getting a fairy to lead you there is no better since she won't think twice before eating you, so nine times out of ten, you're a goner before you can even begin to "negotiate" with her. Pretty much, getting to Kortiki at all is, for the most part, a lost cause.

After looking at the entry I have to wonder what the incentive is to risk your life trying to get to Kortiki town. People need a way to know of the place and a reason to want to go there. Is the library about it? Is there more to attract people than I'm seeing. I might be missing something but it seems like we can work on that more.

Well, it´s a relatively safer place to live, which in Felarya is practically a gift from above. That alone is already enough reason to stay there instead of trying to strike out and find your own place to live. Adventurers might use it as a resting place before traveling further eastwards (or perhaps we can create additional ruins and treasures for adventurers to come hunting for more close by?), which would create business for crafters and merchants and encourage them to come.

As for traveling there, the Great dimensional gate would be a relatively save way to enter, and there could be other gates attuned to the town. It´s a town filled by an entire species of magic users after all. Canopy fairies could also help transporting travelers.

Where is our starting point though? Negav? Assuming we're starting off in a safe place why go to a relatively safe place with no guarantee you won't get killed? Or maybe we're starting in the wilderness and looking for a safe haven. In that case, we'll have to learn of Kortiki town and somehow find our way there, rather than head for Negav if we know of it. I think I'm making this complicated. xD

keroko wrote:

Well, it´s a relatively safer place to live, which in Felarya is practically a gift from above.

You are missing the point. Getting to Kortiki in the first place is vastly more dangerous than heading anywhere else. The danger one must face to reach the town far outweighs its benefits.

That's assuming one starts of in a safe zone to begin with. Not everyone begins their adventures in Felarya in Negav (and even there the term 'safe' is only as great as your ability to check your back). A vanishing land might end up stranding groups of people in the eastern region, a portal beyond Negav's walls might be opened sending in teams of explorers who no little about Felarya. Explorers and adventurers need no reason except fame and fortune to travel beyond the walls of the safe cities. And of course, as mentioned before, there is the Muroyo Library to consider.

If you get stuck in the Fairy Kingdom for one out of many reasons people end up in Felarya to begin with ( because really, when you stop to think about it going to Felarya at all is already insane) then Kortiki town is the safest place to go.

You have yet to answer this: Why would anyone wish to enter the Fairy Kingdom? A fool, I understand, as he is oblivious to the perils around him. However, any person with even the slightest bit of knowledge about Felaryan fairies would not take such a gamble. If one is stranded in the kingdom, making its way to the town is indeed their safest option. BUT it is an incredibly rare occurrence. Furthermore, without any point of reference, that same person could only stumble in Kortiki thanks to pure luck. In short, the only reason one would wish to go to Kortiki Town is out of necessity, not out of choice. If given the choice, one would refuse, as the surrounding territory only spells death upon humans.

keroko wrote:

That's assuming one starts of in a safe zone to begin with. Not everyone begins their adventures in Felarya in Negav (and even there the term 'safe' is only as great as your ability to check your back). A vanishing land might end up stranding groups of people in the eastern region, a portal beyond Negav's walls might be opened sending in teams of explorers who no little about Felarya. Explorers and adventurers need no reason except fame and fortune to travel beyond the walls of the safe cities. And of course, as mentioned before, there is the Muroyo Library to consider.

If you get stuck in the Fairy Kingdom for one out of many reasons people end up in Felarya to begin with ( because really, when you stop to think about it going to Felarya at all is already insane) then Kortiki town is the safest place to go.

If they just end up in Felarya, how are they to learn of Kortiki town, since Im pretty sure hungry-hungry- fairy wont tell them about it.

If there were -friendly- fairies willing to seek out lost adventurers/transported persons and guide them to the relative safety of kortiki town I could see another reason that people could end up there. As things are now, we should either make the journey less dangerous or increase the incentive for venturing there. The risk of being killed within the town is enough to deter most people I think, why add to the danger with no reward. Now if only I could think of an incentive.

I disagree with adding more incentive for people wanting to go to that town. For now, at least. I believe first should be a bit of an origin story to Kortiki in order to answer this simple question: why are fairies living together with humans, nekos and elves, which are normally their preys, and created a large settlement?

My personal theory is that the first people who founded Kortiki town were explorers who, due to wild portal mishaps, found themselves stranded in the Fairy Kingdom. At least to explain how humanoids came to live there. As for how they could have formed a healthy relationship with fairies, the idea still escapes me. Something must have happened for the fairies to acknowledge them as equals.

Shady Knight wrote:

You have yet to answer this: Why would anyone wish to enter the Fairy Kingdom? A fool, I understand, as he is oblivious to the perils around him. However, any person with even the slightest bit of knowledge about Felaryan fairies would not take such a gamble. If one is stranded in the kingdom, making its way to the town is indeed their safest option. BUT it is an incredibly rare occurrence. Furthermore, without any point of reference, that same person could only stumble in Kortiki thanks to pure luck. In short, the only reason one would wish to go to Kortiki Town is out of necessity, not out of choice. If given the choice, one would refuse, as the surrounding territory only spells death upon humans.

I'm not really sure I agree with the 'it's dangerous, so people wouldn't go there' logic. I mean, is the Fairy Kingdom dangerous? Yeah, of course. But it's not inherently more dangerous than pretty much the rest of Felarya. Yet, people still travel to this world, explore it and chose to live here, carving out their own little places to live. Negav, the neko village, the Miratan and Deluran bases, the Jungle Bowl, there's a clear desire to travel and even settle in Felarya despite the dangers. I don't see why the Fairy Kingdom would be excempt from this.

Why would they do this? Fame and fortune mostly, curiosity for some. Ignorance at times plays a part as well (tome one and hard choices have two good examples of this). Basically, mostly for the same reasons everyone else. Though in the case of the Fairy Kingdom, we have a unique reason to add to it. Two, actually: The Muroyo Library is one, but even putting that treasure trove aside, a friendly relationship with fairies means a unique oportunity to learn from them. These are creatures with a natural skill in magic, imagine all the things you could learn from them. Even should some, or even many of their skills be limited to their kind, they would still have a ton of skills that could potentially be learned by other races.

Now the fairies, they don't necessarily acknowledge the humans themselves as equal, it's just that the village is neutral grounds and eating humans there is taboo. This means that the fairies who live there have a chance to get to know the humans, and could develop bonds with them putting them in the 'people category' to use a leaf from Crisis book.

keroko wrote:

I mean, is the Fairy Kingdom dangerous? Yeah, of course. But it's not inherently more dangerous than pretty much the rest of Felarya.

OBJECTION! If you refer to the Fairy Kingdom page here, you will notice that its Danger level is classified as High. If you refer to the page listing the known locations there, you see that there is a danger ranking. As you can see, High is above Normal, which is referred to as "most of Felarya". Therefore, the Fairy Kingdom is indeed more dangerous than the rest of Felarya.

Shady Knight wrote:

keroko wrote:

I mean, is the Fairy Kingdom dangerous? Yeah, of course. But it's not inherently more dangerous than pretty much the rest of Felarya.

OBJECTION! If you refer to the Fairy Kingdom page here, you will notice that its Danger level is classified as High. If you refer to the page listing the known locations there, you see that there is a danger ranking. As you can see, High is above Normal, which is referred to as "most of Felarya". Therefore, the Fairy Kingdom is indeed more dangerous than the rest of Felarya.

Point taken. Let me alter my point then: All of Felarya is dangerous, yet this has not stopped people from settling down and exploring the lands, even the more dangerous zones.

Now for a reason why this place was declared neutral ground, a little brainspin hit me: Kortiki town is on the southern side of the Fairy Kingdom, which borders on the Great Rocky Fields there. During the The Era of Mirages, the Fairy Kingdom was threatened by the dimensional tide. Perhaps somewhere in the past, a group of the early elvish, human and neko races aided the fairies during their time of need, during which an agreement was brokered not to eat the smaller races as long as the tide roiled on. After the Fairy Kingdom was isolated by the bottomless chasm, these races were granted a small area where they could stay safe as a reward for their aid. This later grew into Kortiki town.

well I have been trying to delelope a few things that would help improve Kortiki Town...mainly ust a little bit of culture and how it establishes trade...

http://kikijonson.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=Kortiki#/d475r07 just an idea I had for trade..though this was mainl made for development of my comic series that takes place in Kortiki Town...it might be somthing to look into...



http://kikijonson.deviantart.com/gallery/?q=Pixie+Ball#/d499qd8

THat is another Idea of a sport that could have possibly been developed in Koriki town...I ould imagine they would have events like this common in Kortiki Town...maybe even a small arena like ara to play it at..

keroko wrote:

Point taken. Let me alter my point then: All of Felarya is dangerous, yet this has not stopped people from settling down and exploring the lands, even the more dangerous zones.

Now for a reason why this place was declared neutral ground, a little brainspin hit me: Kortiki town is on the southern side of the Fairy Kingdom, which borders on the Great Rocky Fields there. During the The Era of Mirages, the Fairy Kingdom was threatened by the dimensional tide. Perhaps somewhere in the past, a group of the early elvish, human and neko races aided the fairies during their time of need, during which an agreement was brokered not to eat the smaller races as long as the tide roiled on. After the Fairy Kingdom was isolated by the bottomless chasm, these races were granted a small area where they could stay safe as a reward for their aid. This later grew into Kortiki town.

Ok, this sorta... in some small way ties in with my myth about Déméchrelle's life. It's not much but it's all I could think of at the moment.

Ehem... a myth about the reason Kortiki town was founded…


Shortly after Déméchrelle was sealed and the dark tide receded there were already whispers spreading around Felarya foretelling the return of the queen of darkness. The person who was said to have seen the vision of her return was ironically known as both a gifted story teller and a habitual liar depending on who you asked. Naturally most disregarded the so-called vision of the future and went about their daily lives. Some took the vision very seriously though, having been traumatized by their ordeals during the hundred years of nightmares, and they set out to spread the word.

Now, exactly what the visionary supposedly saw is unclear since stories have a way of changing as they’re passed along. “A rigid person emerging from a ring with several points surrounding it helps the protectors of the world drive the darkness back once again.” Those were his words. There wasn't any detail on what role he/she plays, nor was there much in the way of detail on who this “rigid person” would be. One could assume that by “rigid” the visionary meant unchanging in beliefs or form, and this unchanging person would emerge from a ring that’s surrounded by several points. A “ring” could be any place or thing, even the chasm surrounding the fairy kingdom which means the person could emerge from somewhere within it. Because of that possibility, as small as it may be, a place within the fairy kingdom where this unknown person could be guarded seems like a plausible cause for founding a town such as Kortiki. But if one were to ask the inhabitants of Kortiki town, it’s doubtful they would find anyone who knows of the foretelling, much less anyone who would believe it was the reason for the town’s creation.


Ok, that's it from me for now xD

Mhh those are interesting ideas as to why Kortiki was founded
I think it's pretty open at this point, although I'm leaning more toward a deed or accomplishment an human or a group of human would have done long ago and that somehow stayed in the collective memory of the fairies of the region. The exact causes might be now more or less forgotten, but the custom stayed.

Also I don't really see Kortiki as a place people would actively try to reach through conventional means, because it's indeed a very dangerous journey to do. You would have a very good reason to do so.
Another interesting aspect of that mix with fairies is that the humans of Kortiki would be very used to be around fairies and would start to be able to pick on how their mind work and have a better understanding of their quirks. So even if they were to encounter fairies outside of the safety of Kortiki, they would have chances to survive the encounter, simply because they know better how to interract with them I think.

Kiki : I really loved the pixie ball idea, it's the sort of rather chaotic and fun sport I could see fairies play