Worldbuilding Omega-2023

What Greetings and solvents! Damn it! Oh well, it is the end of the year so let’s do a year review on how it has gone and what we have learned! And to top this year off, Anne Winchell and I will make up a species that is free for anyone to use 😀

Evaluation

I want to thank all my readers for this wonderful year! Since launching the blog, I have gone from a handful of visitors per month into the hundreds! Thank you all for enjoying my ramblings on topics related to worldbuilding! And of course Anne’s ramblings on writing!

What I loved the most

It’s been a great year, but what production of the year is the one I love the most? It is a simple choice: 15 Rules of Mine for Worldbuilding. There is no contest to it, in my humble view. Why do I love it so much? I believe it was Anne who suggested I could do rules. I thought it would just be fun, and of course it was! But when I sat down to write it, I did not anticipate it would turn out so well. Each time I reread it, I feel that the rules are fantastic to this day, and it still applies. Could I write it better? Yeah, but the rules themselves are great!
(Anne:) The 15 Rules is also the post that I refer back to in my writing all the time. For a long time Vivian would talk to me about worldbuilding and always came back to a few simple things, so I encouraged zhim to write them out, and wow, zhi did a great job. It’s really helped me figure out my writing and worlds so much better. Not only that, I’ve used the rules to teach worldbuilding in several undergraduate honours courses on creative writing that I teach. My students have found it extremely useful, and even started to refer to things as cogs, which Vivian expands on in zhir post about cogs. I really hope you’re able to use these 15 Rules to streamline your own writing!

(Vivian:) Of course Lady Verbosa writes more than me, but that is why I love her!

What I learned the most from

Most of what I have written, I knew from the get go, with only minute details to check up on, but I have this annoying editor who makes her contributions to the blog, so I have had great opportunities to learn as well! So what did I learn the most from? In my opinion, it has to be Advertisements. I had the fundamental feeling for what makes good ads and all, but I have never looked into it like Anne did and analysed it. Everything she wrote there just made it apparent exactly what I knew in my heart. We even did this whole thing about a fictional company and their advertisements, and she turned it into a practicum for TCCMC! Read it, I command thee! Trust Anne!

(Anne:) Vivian and I really have had fun with TCCMC. Literally as we were starting writing this post, Vivian told me to write an ad about a new idea zhi had. We’re still having fun with it, and zhi’s really learned how to write a great ad! Trust Vivian!

What I look forward to expanding

(Vivian:) As much as I love going on about biologies and its many strangenesses, what I actually look forward to the most is doing more economics-based ones. While biology certainly has had a huge effect on how a society develops and becomes what it is, economics is ultimately what determines most things. Humans have time and time again shown great will and ability to change almost anything if the economic incentives and capabilities exist.

My hopes for next year

My hopes for the coming year are simple: that I can and will continue to grow this blog and its utility for writers of all kinds will continue to increase. My plans include, for example, doing a practicum on the Tshutsi, continuing the character series, and my favourite thing in writing: show don’t tell!

(Anne:) My hopes for next year are to keep getting invited back to write fun posts about helping all of you make your writing shine!

(Vivian:) Some of us have more lofty dreams than others 😉

Practicum: Laekwa

Now we are doing the thing you came for! This species, while made for my Stellima universe, is designed by me and Anne Winchell–Welcome my dear sister! (Anne: Thanks for inviting me to the species creation! I’ll take any chance to make some fun alien art!) See, she’s great! No takesies! Unlike Anne, this species is entirely free for anyone to use in any project you want and it will not require anything from you. Consider it a gift from us to the community! The exact nature of copyright of the species will be explained later.

Sg: Laekwa

Pl: Laekwat

Adj: Laekka

Planetary system

Their planet, named Laektal, is, well, actually more of a moon! It orbits around a gas giant with rings. It is one of the outer moons outside the rings and works as a shepherd moon (Anne: that’s when the moon helps maintain the rings by shepherding pieces back in place). Unfortunately for this solar system, early on, their gas giants wandered in, and this one got stuck in the habitable zone where on this moon, life eventually evolved. (Anne: It’s the wandering in that’s unfortunate since that means the existing planets are flung into the gas giant, into the star, or out into the great vastness of space–you’d think Vivian would explain some of this stuff for the novice planet builders!)

(Anne:) One other thing to add is the climate, which has breathable air even humans could get by in and plenty of water for life to evolve! Plants are frequently phosphorescent and shades of whitish green and whitish blue, and some even resemble the rocks and soil!

And of course at this point, advanced and complex cities have spread across the land using circular architecture, as very few straight lines exist. Alien influences have brought in straight elements, but these are found more in ornamental pieces than the core architecture. Cities are often shielded, giving them the appearance of having glowing rings at night. And many areas of the shores are considered off limits for city development as the terrain makes it almost impossible to profitably build anything, plus the more scenic shores are seen as spiritual areas to reconnect with the natural world. Underwater development is still in the works, as until recently there was no good way to build lasting structures more complex than caves. You can read about the challenges in Vivian’s blog on Aquatic Civilizations.

Biology

(Vivian:) We start with their biology… Wait, did someone reset the timeline or something? Anyway, it’s after their planet! (Anne: If you want a primer on alien biology, check out Vivian’s posts on Alien Biology and Alien Sexes!) Laekwat are sexually dimorphic amphibian oviparous protandry sequential hermaphrodites. Boy, those were some big words! What do they all mean? Simply put, sexually dimorphic means parts of their appearance other than the reproductive organs make the sexes different, amphibians is a branch on the human tree that relates to frogs and other nearby species, oviparous means the females lay eggs, sequential hermaphrodite means that, no they do not have both sexes, it means they ARE both sexes, but at different times, and this is where the protandry part comes in. They are all born as males, and then later in life they all become female.

They spend their first 60 years of life as males and last 60 as females. In both cases, they experience ageing, but at around 60, when they transition to female, their bodies begin rejuvenating back to about the age of 20 in human comparison. Their dimorphism is quite reversed from what humans are used to in that the females are larger than the males. Gynomorphing, the act of changing from male to female, takes about a year to conclude and brings on severe hormonal changes.

Fun fact: Laekwat have horizontal pupils, which are better for seeing around and are often used by grazing animals, which is what the far back ancestors of the Laekwat were!

Females

(Anne:) Female Laekwa stand at 188 cm to 201 cm, or between 6’2” and 6’7”. As amphibians, they spend time in the water where their length and powerful limbs give them speed and stamina. On land, they’re better able to intimidate or evade predators. Evolutionarily speaking, at least! But hey, that’s where most of our body shape and function comes from!

Females have a large frame to produce and lay eggs as well, a vital part of reproduction. This is the first step in creating the next generation, and they need to attract plenty of males. Ever since Laekwat started formalising relationships, this has been in the form of husbands.

Their colouring is purple and teal, serving as camouflage both in and out of the water, and they have long tails with dorsal fins, fins along the sides of their tails, and an elaborate fin at the tip of their tail that provides momentum underwater. Their tails can stretch up to 152 cm or 5’0”, not including the fin at the tip.

Finally, they have fine fibres on their heads that resemble the eyebrows and hair of humans. These are usually black or purple and the head hair can grow quite long. Females fashion it in similar ways to humans. The hair only begins growing after their gynomorph for reasons no one fully understands, but scientists suspect it has to do with the hormonal changes.

Males

(Anne:) Male Laekwat are considerably shorter, at 152 cm to 165 cm or between 5’0” and 5’5”. Their skin has more pronounced scales that provide protection almost like an armadillo and allowed ancient Laekwat to fend off predators that they weren’t skilled enough to avoid until after their gynomorph.

After finding a mate and/or wife, they fertilise some or all of her eggs, then are responsible for guarding the eggs against predators. Once the eggs hatch, they’re also responsible for the majority of raising the children. In today’s terms, we would think of them as stay at home dads.

Unlike the camouflage of females, males have bright red along their bellies and faces, including a pattern on their foreheads unique to each individual, in order to help ward off smaller predators. Their backs and limbs are primarily black in case they need to curl into a ball (again, like an armadillo) to avoid the notice of larger predators. When eggs and children are small enough, they can use their bodies to shield them as well. They have tails in a similar proportion to their bodies as females but with colouring to match their bodies.

Society

(Anne:) As you might have been able to guess from the fact that the women are larger and older than the men, giving them time to amass knowledge and power, Laekwat have a matriarchal society. In older times, simply surviving long enough to become female could be an accomplishment, since plagues with similar effects as smallpox and the Black Death happened far too often. Although both plagues have been virtually eradicated and almost all males live long enough for the gynomorphing, or their transition to female, the respect and honour that females receive hasn’t lessened.

Vivian and I will share an outline of some elements of their society and culture, and if you want to know more about how to design your own, Vivian has a whole blog on Culture!

Religion

(Anne:) This one will be brief, as they don’t have organised religion. Instead, their belief system centres around one’s connection to the land, the water, and to each other, echoing the importance of all of those in society. They often spend time at the shore, usually in groups or as couples. But honestly, that’s about it for religion.

Government

(Vivian:) I’ll sneak in here! Their government can be best described as a matriarchal oligarchy. Not everyone gets a vote, especially not males! You cannot trust them to make good voters; they are so emotional! 😛 Jokes aside on stupid arguments, their reasoning is more that males have not lived long enough to make good voters. Rather than one person = one vote, they have one family = one vote.

So it is democratic, but the voter base is heavily reduced. The head of the family, which Anne will go into in a bit, is always the female, and she votes for the entire family. She usually votes in concert with her family rather than despite their opinions. These females vote for local rulers, presidents, and the whole shebang.

They have a unicameral system, meaning they only have one chamber they vote people into, so for Americans, think of it like only having the House of Representatives. Can you guess who sits there? Yepp, females. Maybe the occasional male gets in, but that is a rare occurrence. Males are much more likely to have assistant jobs, then after their gynomorphing, they go into politics.

(Anne:) This government system is a new one for the blog, but Vivian covers a lot of other systems in zhir blogpost on Governments!

Family

(Anne:) Vivian brought up family, so let’s talk about that for a moment! Family forms the core of Laekka society, but what exactly is a family? Laekka families don’t look like human families, that’s for sure. Laekwat are a polyandrous society, meaning each female has multiple male spouses. However, aside from that (fairly large) difference, family is still family. There’s the family you’re born into, and the family that you choose.

Laekka males belong to their mother’s family growing up, and traditionally they’re on their own after gynomorphing. In modern times, however, the new females can opt to remain with their parent’s family unless their parents object. That’s the family they’re born with.

Once the males find someone and fall in love, they can propose and hopefully get welcomed into their wife’s family. For most Laekwat, this sets up their primary family from then on. In fact, there can be quite a bit of political manoeuvring to end up with the right wife and gain the right connections. As with humans, sometimes marriage isn’t about love.

Each immediate family consists of a female head of household, her husbands, and her children, both those still in eggs and those who have hatched. However, larger family groupings include all of the females connected to the matriarch of the family who represents them in government. Quite a bit of political manoeuvring goes on here, too, as people try to align themselves with the matriarch and get in line to be next!

Gynomorphing

(Vivian:) It's finally the big day! Actually nah, it is not like that. Human FEEEMAAALEEES have to endure hardship every month for a week or so, but Laekwat do it once and for a WHOLE YEAR! Yikes, I’d not want that for a whole year 😬 Anyway, it is not easy to predict for them. Gynomorphing can really come anytime between 55 and 65 years as a male.

The initial part of it is very subtle; you can barely tell for the first month (using human time). After that, the speed picks up. The males start growing in size and change colour. The biggest change is that they go from a fairly visible male just past middle age into a young and obvious female. The first visible sign is their red colours fading, with the black parts growing more grey. At around month 3, they have very bland colouration, and their body picks up speed and changes. This includes internalising the reproductive organ to make the female one, as well as the development of secondary sex characteristics. (Anne: With the interesting exception that hair growth is actually stimulated when becoming female as opposed to human adolescence when hair growth is associated with becoming an adult male). After that, the physical changes slow down and are finished by month 11, and the final changes in colour happen to make them completely female.

(Anne:) Once a Laekwa is fully female and no additional changes have occurred for a certain period of time (which changes depending on culture and time period), the wife, if married, or the parents, if unmarried, hold a celebration to mark their entrance into the female world. For a married Laekwa, it marks the evolution of their marriage into its next form, as I’ll describe in the next section!

Relationships and romance

(Anne:) This is definitely a topic for me, as things like romance are far more in my wheelhouse than Vivian’s!

We’ll do the romantic angle first, then we’ll focus on the platonic relationships, which are just as important in their society. One key thing to note is that sexual attraction is reliant on their own sex, so for a heterosexual male, they’re attracted to females. When they celebrate their gynomorph and become female, a heterosexual Laekwa no longer finds females sexually attractive and is now attracted to males. Their previously sexual relationships remain in the form of platonic relationships and can be equally powerful.

I’ll also touch on queerness in their society in a minute, since obviously not everyone is heterosexual. Vivian and I have been using male and female instead of man and woman so far, by the way, because we’ve talked about everything from a biological perspective only. We’ll discuss deviations to this briefly in the next section.

So you’re a young Laekka male, finally ready to embrace your destiny and fall in love! Now what?

When choosing a spouse, age differences don’t matter as much as they do in human society given the inherent difference between males and females, though of course there is a lot of stigma about going after too young a male, and the older females tend to be more desirable. Family and politics often play a role in finding someone to be with, but most marriages start with romance.

Romance works in many of the same ways as it does for humans. Sometimes you get to know a person over time, and an attraction naturally builds. Sometimes it’s like lightning, and you know that’s the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. Laekwat have the same range of experiences with falling in love, but courting is complicated by the fact that many women already have one or more husbands. How do you stand out in the crowd?

Dating as a Laekwa involves getting to know all members of the family, not just the female. Having strong friendships with the other husbands can get them on your side, an important step in earning not just love from the desired female but also acceptance of that prized toadsjewel traditionally given when proposing. In previous times, the toadsjewel would be an authentic vial of poison collected from the Laent toad and known to be pure due to its phosphorescent sheen. These days, toadsjewels can be purchased for a hefty price, so whether by dangerous collecting or chunks of money, you’ll be paying dearly for the chance to propose.

Fun trivia: a truly barbaric rite from so far back that many claim it’s hearsay is that if the woman refused the proposal, the male would have to drink the poison!

Married life is bliss, but there’s just one problem… Gynomorphing puts an abrupt end to the sexual aspects of marriage as the husbands become female in their own right. Assuming there was genuine love between husband and wife, that love doesn’t die. Instead, it morphs along with them. Generally speaking, the two will no longer be sexually attracted to each other, and if the only thing holding them together was sex, well, then yeah, that relationship is done for.

Normally, though, there’s real affection. The new females are often mentored by their former wife (who may have begun this even while they were males) and the new females retain their position in their wife’s family. They still refer to her as their wife, and it’s still possible to get divorced after both are female should the occasion require, since the marriage itself doesn’t end upon gynomorphing.

The changing relationships from romance to friendship, sexual to platonic, one of many husbands to being the only wife, all create a huge variety of experiences of knowing another person that humans can’t fully comprehend. A person’s relationship with another could take almost any trajectory based on age and time of gynomorph and any other little difference in their biological makeup, and this variety gives them an appreciation for friends, family, and lovers alike.

Queerness

(Vivian:) First, a little biology section! Just a tiny bit! Like humans, they have the usual queer people like gays, lesbians, asexuals, trans people, and so on. The one thing that makes this different from humans is that queer and non-queer can actually change during the gynomorphing. Just as gender and attraction usually change during the process, for some individuals, they don’t, and in nigh all cases where it can be relevant, they don’t know until the process is over and done with. Thus, a person can go from queer to straight or from straight to queer, etc.

Now, societally, what does it mean to be queer? Not much, given I have done this in a scifi setting where it is in most cases a settled “issue” to them. The gynomorphing can and does cause huge disruptions even when done normally; it doing the same in queer relations would only be natural. Most queer people are left to their own accord and enjoy life as they see fit, and when the issue of gynomorphing happens, that is viewed as it is for straight people: a problem to deal with then, and see what becomes of life.

(Anne:) You can read more about queerness in alien species in Vivian’s blogpost Alien Queerness, but for the Laekwat, the biggest impact being queer has on a person’s life relates to their family. A male attracted to other males won’t be interested in marrying a female and thus earning a place in her family. However, they still have the family that they were born with. If a Laekwa was straight prior to the gynomorph (male attracted to females) and married, then after the gynomorph remained attracted to females, they would have a family but no desire for husbands of their own. And of course all along the spectrum, you can see how it plays out.

Family is essential in Laekka life, and it’s important to notice that at no point does anyone lose their family. While in much older times being queer might be reason to be outcast, instead of wandering off to die alone, queer Laekwat gathered together into new families of individuals who were once considered on the fringe. As society became more and more tolerant, these families of queer males and females rejoined proper society and became enmeshed in life, culture, and government.

Sexism and gender roles

(Vivian:) Before I let Anne go nuts here, I want to preface this with that one thing I have always hated in worldbuilding and stories: the inverse relationship between sexes in humans, especially when it is meant to to show “Oh look how it is to be on the other side.” I hate this because as bad as the sexism humans have is, it exists for a reason. Not a valid reason, but a reason, and most attempts to inverse it are just inversed for no damn reason. Know the reasons why something exists before inverting it sensibly!

(Anne:) Wait, you think I’m going to go nuts here just because I’m a woman? SEXIST! 😜 Even though the Laekka people turn convention on its head and have women as the larger, stronger, wiser sex that leads government, this isn’t a way to prove a point about sexism and gender roles, and it isn’t a way to show men what it’s like to be the oppressed sex. Vivian actually touches on a lot of this in zhir blog Alien Sexes and Society.

Because everyone who lives long enough experiences life as both male and female, oppression due to sex is much reduced. Again, this isn’t because women are in charge and women are somehow “better” than to be sexist. There’s some discrimination just in terms of who is allowed into government posts. Exceptions to the general all-female policy are exceedingly rare. However, it is common for a wife of a politically ambitious male to mentor them and show them the ropes so they get a leg up when they gynomorph.

The reason for the relative equality is baked into the way that the species functions. That does lead to distinct gender roles within society even though there are exceptions. As previously stated, women are mentors in many ways and for many purposes. They’re also the ones who lay eggs which are then fertilised by their husbands. Having many husbands provides more genetic variation and, as a result, has evolved into a desirable trait. And because the males have slightly more invested in the eggs that they themselves have fertilised, they remain with the eggs to take care of them while the stronger, wiser females traditionally hunt for food.

In today’s world, that generally means that women enter the workforce while men are stay at home dads. And because women have to support numerous husbands and children, there are plenty of stable, well-paid jobs available. Many have prerequisites that males can begin learning and training for before their gynomorph with the help of their wives, but many are available to those new to being female.

Their society has entered a stage of increasing equality, and as a result, men are more and more likely to have jobs. The role of stay at home dad is often given to a single dad who wants the job while the others pursue their own desires. Still, roles for men are introductory and lower level even in today’s world. They just don’t have the experience necessary, but that isn’t a result of them being male. It’s a result of maleness associated with the first half of their lives and a literal lack of experience.

Summa Laekwarum

(Anne:) I wanted to briefly sum up the species and leave you with some ideas and suggestions! The Laekwat are a wonderful species if you’re looking for a semi-aquatic species for your world or galaxy, and if you want to play around with a matriarchy in a way that makes biological sense, they’re your people! There are biological and evolutionary reasons for everything in their culture, and depending on how you want to set up the species, they can be moving beyond this into equality and a galactic reach, or still be in a more primitive state. The species is your oyster!

(Vivian:) What can I say? I helped in making them, so they are amazing and strange. Please enjoy everything about them and use them as you like–the stranger you make them, the happier I am!

Copyleft

(Vivian:) Now how is this species copyrighted?

Summa summarum

(Vivian:) All in all, it has been a good and fun year! I have things to be proud of, Anne has done great, and we both hope everything we have produced has helped everyone in some manner. The Laekwat are a decently developed species that you are all free to use. Anything you wish to say, Anne?

(Anne:) It’s been such an honour to be a regular guest writer and also the editor of the Stellima blog, and I look forward to another exciting year! As all of you go off to your own worlds and your own writing, I hope you’re able to use some of what we’ve given you this year! And have fun with the Laekwat, a unique species that Vivian and I had a blast creating!

(Vivian:) Happy New Year everyone!

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Copyright ©️ 2023 Vivian Sayan and Anne Winchell. The original idea of the Laekka species is Copylefted (ɔ) (as described above). However, all images and all language or exact phrasing are individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage. We’re almost always happy to give permission with credit. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.

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