Overview

World Description

A realm comprised primarily of rock and lava pools, the atmosphere is thick with a dark smoke from all the volcanoes present. Due to the thick atmosphere, no heavenly bodies are clear in the sky, and the land is most often overcast. The only indicators of daylight would be the fact that the sky is a lighter shade than it is at night. Though given to urbanization and natural bodies that emit light, most of the land is well light regardless, so the only major change is the lightness or darkness of the sky itself rather than the environment.

All inhabitants have adapted to these conditions, making them fire proof and able to resist the extremely high temperatures. They are, however susceptible to feeling cold from the temperatures of the [earth] and [ice] realms. The latter often leading to death within minutes if ill prepared/outside of common grounds.

Sentient Race

The primary sentient race are large swan geese shapeshifters whose sizes range from 7 to 9 ft in height. Due to the Great Collapse, they no longer have purely swan-like features, and individuals may even have horns, hooves, paws, claws, canines and whatever else merged into their primary forms. Besides strict feather coloration, swan geese have a large range of iris eye colors, their sclera however stay black. The most common eye color is blue, while the least common would be orange. 

In their humanoid forms, their skin are usually shades of dull reds to red-purple hues, the most common skin color is often pink. Their eyes stay the same as their primary forms, and their hair is the same color as their primary feather color: either black or white, making it common to have dyed hair if the individual is in their humanoid form often. Being shapeshifters, they may choose the texture of their hair before shifting into their form.

Another common feature in swan geese are their teeth on their tongue, and the black coloration of these teeth. The species coming from omnivores, used to use these teeth to ensure live prey stayed in their mouths. Now, these teeth aren't as big or sharp, and are comparable to the size of regular human teeth.

For the most part, their primary forms are clad in black feathers, or occasionally having white markings. Individuals who are more white than black are labelled hybrids, but this difference isn't usually referred to in conversation, only birth certificates and identification due to likelihood of health issues relating to albinism. Pure white individuals are plainly considered albinos.

Albinism in the Species

Albinos may have the same range of physical appearances as a normal swan goose, however they are often smaller, and considered weaker (though it isn't always the case). Their humanoid forms have desaturated skin colors, and even to the point of looking gray, this skin condition isn't limited to albinos, they are simply more likely to have this. While still rare of an occurrence, albinos are known to have an eye with yellow sclera. 80% of the time yellow sclera eyes are found to be blind and the irises of such eyeballs are pale in comparison to regular eyes. There has been no cases of a swan with fully yellow sclera in all eyes as of yet. A statistic shows individuals with two to four eyes will have 1 yellow sclera, and those with 5-8 will have 2. Though given the rarity of albinism researchers aren't sure of the cause, any correlations or percentage chance. For the time being it's referred to as a mutation.

Only albinos are known to have naturally white eyelashes, facial hair and body hair. Non-albinos with white hair still have these features in black.

Notable non-albinos with desaturated skin

"Retired" Strategist Yitone Roo. Though their condition is only minor, and they still exhibit a faint purple/pink hue.

Notable Albinos

The Current King

The Third Prince (Prince of Economic Affairs)

Basic Flora

The common flora of the realm are often woody appendages spurting from the ground like the fingers of some skeletal wood giant whose body was badly burnt before their inevitable death. Of course, that isn't the case and these plants are very much alive. They take nutrients from the ground as it has a large range of minerals. Water is not a needed factor of these plants and by all means they seem to intake the local heat in order to perform their basic food processing tasks. They have no leaves to collect sunlight from as there's never any actual sunlight to gather anyway. 

Flowers and fruits from most plants are inedible to every creature in any other realm, and instead are very useful as fuel for machinery in the [common grounds]. Some trees in this world are so flame resistant that they spurt up and grow within lava pools. Such trees are very highly sought after in the making of structures in all [common grounds] for the accommodation of the swan geese.

Basic Fauna

Most creatures can remind us humans of insects or skeletal fish (not to be mistaken for fish from the [earth realm], they die upon contact with the earth in this realm). Insects that burrow in the ground and eat the minerals in it, or live inside trees and cling onto them like parasites. Some find homes in the lava pools, being unable to live outside such molten conditions

Weather patterns

The air is dry, and smoky. To the inhabitants this isn't much of a problem, but to visiting individuals the common grounds have been made more hospitable. The only kind of 'rain' this realm receives would be acid rain. While most inhabitants are resistant, having such liquid get in the eyes is always a bother. Some days it gets windy, causing fires to burn even louder in certain locations. Windy weather is also the most ideal for swan geese to fly in, as strong currents help lift their large bodies up. The truthful answer is that they simply find turbulence as a kind of entertainment or training. It isn't for everyone though.