Lore/Glossary

Creation & Existence
When a human city reaches a threshold of about 250 thousand people, the sheer amount of living energy causes the spontaeous creation of a mirrored city in a connected dimension.

The spawn includes an initial spawn of an Ayneh population that are already adults with inherent knowledge of the infrastructure – they are already at work and living busy lives. (see Ayneh – Original Populations)

The mirror realm is in perpetual nighttime, but it follows the same timezones, moon phases, weather patterns, and seasons as the human realm does. What happens in the human realm reflects on the mirror realm – if there is a thunderstorm in one, it will be in both. Mirror realm foliage grows and thrives without sunlight but instead of green it’s usually teal, blue, pink, purple or white.

City Energy
The living, breathing energy of any city – human or Ayneh. Humans can detect it in larger cities, but their logic dismisses it as anything “real”. Guardians can see it as wispy threads, attune to it, and also manipulate it for various uses.

Portal Types
Portals are the links between the mirror and human realms. They normally open and close on their own on reflective surfaces, but Guardians and other gods can open and close them at will. Humans don’t notice them, but Ayneh and Guardians can see a pale pink glow surrounding the surface they’re occupying. Sometimes they can fracture instead of closing themselves, and they are unusable at that point because they can literally tear a body apart.

Standard – Normal portals that appear on flat reflective surfaces. Appearing on bodies of water bigger than puddles is very uncommon but they can occur on surfaces of very still ponds or lakes.

One-Way – Far less common and rarely even noticed, these can appear in things like hand mirrors or rear-view mirrors.

Static – Portals that Guardians open and keep open permanently and have no danger of fracturing.

Languages
Like in the human realm, every city has a dominant spoken language or languages.

Additionally, the Ayneh write and speak their own language – Aynlish – and they blend this and their city’s dominant language with ease and can switch back and forth even mid-sentence. Aynlish is something humans can’t seem to grasp – to them, it sounds like a glitchy hissing and murmuring they can’t quite decipher.

Many Ayneh also inherently know a third language, depending on the immediate heritage of their Founder. For instance, Amnon knows limited Russian because his Founder’s parents are Russian immigrants to Canada.

In the comic, Aynlish is spoken and thought with black dialogue balloons and white text.

The Commonwealth
In the human realm, The Commonwealth of Nations is a collection of a number of member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. In the mirror realm, the Guardian of London’s massive mirror city is an Elder who is the head of the same Commonwealth and oversees the rule of its much younger Guardians. She has no jurisdiction over the Commonwealth cities normally, but if something goes awry she can step in and even take over.

Expansion and Annexation – (Coming Soon)

War and Destruction – (Coming Soon)

Role
Guardians are minor deities sent to protect and rule over a new mirror city. They rule as the city’s monarch for the duration of the city’s life, which can be hundred of years or more. Some demand to be worshipped as gods, but many younger Guardians prefer to avoid this.

Sex and Gender
Guardians spawn without gender or physical sex. They choose both soon after spawning and can change them at will. However, most Elders remain genderless.

Physical Appearance
Guardians are Ayneh gods, therefore their physical bodies are made to resemble their race. They stand much taller, generally between 9 and 10 feet tall at the crown of the head, and their horns are longer and bigger. Like the Ayneh, their skin and eyes can be any colour, pupils can be any shape, and they can have between two and six eyes – though Elders are more likely to have five to six eyes. Many Guardians – especially younger ones – prefer to be a height similar to their city’s denizens. Not only does this make them more relatable and approachable, it makes it much easier to enter buildings.

Hair
Normally very long, a Guardian’s hair is light and buoyant enough to not be heavy and it repels dirt and other deitrus. It can also be mildly to moderately prehensile in some individuals, and its length can be shortened or extended at will. The hair can be of any texture or colour. There are five types of colour: Solid colour, ombre, multi-colour streaks, metallic, and starry. Starry is a very common evolution trait and the stars appear to move and shimmer on a dark base colour.

Special: Noruh voluntarily shortens his hair for ease of washing and brushing.

Evolving Appearance
Guardians’ appearances can alter in various ways as their cities and domains evolve. These alterations appear on their own, but it is ultimately up to the Guardian if they want their appearance to change that way. Some alterations did not appear until the invention of electric lights – the common glow markings seen on many Guardians’ faces only began appearing in the late 19^th century.

Noruh’s Appearance – Significance
Noruh’s face and torso markings resemble the “T” shape on the Toronto city flag introduced in 1974, while his horn shape evolved to resemble the asymmetrical shape of City Hall’s two towers (the positioning of which are reversed in Latera)

Latera & Noruh’s Birth
The city of Toronto hit its population threshold on July 19^th, 1919, putting forth enough energy to spawn a mirror city. As it spawned, Noruh was waiting in the spirit realm and the domain was granted to him. He was given his physical body some minutes later and then chose a physical sex and gender – though he changes these from time to time.

Heart Bonding, Marriage, & Soul-Splits
Guardian marriage is very much a uniting of power and resources. If the cities are close enough together, they will merge and form a prosperous megacity with the two Guardians sharing each other’s Hearts and energy. Love is a secondary factor in these marriages.

However, some Guardians fall in love with mortal Ayneh and wish to marry them. It is a somewhat controversial decision to bond them with their Heart crystal, since it forever changes a mortal’s future. Bonding means the Ayneh will never die from age or illness, but will live as long as their Guardian spouse does and when they do pass, their souls will remain together in the Overworld. They will also be able to perceive each other’s feelings and communicate telepathically. It also means the Ayneh will never be able to separate from the Guardian, so it’s a very serious decision that should never be made quickly.

Some Guardian spirits decide to split into two before they are given a city. They tend to do this when they see that two cities will spawn fairly close together – they are automatically spouses and will therefore share the territory out of pure love instead of as a business transaction. Even so, these splits need to be approved by the Nameless Ones as well as the living Elders, which can be a lengthy process.

Soul splits reunite once both cities have spawned.

Originials
The initial population that spawns along with a new mirror city. These fully formed adults are already at work and at play. They have a shorter lifespan than subsequent generations but are always remembered and honoured.

Founders
As Ayneh cannot reproduce sexually, every Ayneh is spawned by the birth of a baby in the human version of their city. The Ayneh individual physically takes after this human as far as features and height go, but that is generally where the similarities end. The Ayneh call these humans who spawned them their “Founders” and are inherently aware of things like immediate cultural heritage.

Spawnlings
When a spawnling is born, it will be underground or underwater in the general area where the city’s Guardian spawned. Here, the city energy is at its richest and the waters or ground will permanently be very warm, even in winter. The spawnling is nurtured via their umbilical cord by this city energy for 2-3 weeks, in which time they have grown to the size of a toddler and their cord falls off naturally, letting them swim to the surface and breathe air for the first time. When they surface, they are collected by adult Ayneh who take them to one of the city’s spawn complexes, where the young ones will grow, learn, play and be nurtured. They are nameless but go by a combination of their complex’s group name and a number.

The spawn complexes are very warm and loving, with separate areas for education, play, and rest. They are divided into different groups according to the month they spawned. Spawnlings grow very rapidly over the next twelve months, and around their first birthday they will coccoon themelves in a dark quiet place and evolve into a sub-adult state, resembling a 14 year old human. This is when they choose skin markings and patterns and additional hair or horn colours, as well as their sex, gender, and name. At around this time they will have chosen family members, and will leave the spawnling complex to form homes with these families – returning for daily education and learning how to be adults.

For the next five years the spawnling grows much more slowly than they did before, and by the end of this period are the equivalent of a 20 year old human and can officially be considered an adult.

Family Forming
As Ayneh families are not biological, they generally form them while they’re spawnlings living in the complexes. These families consist of other spawnlings of various ages, sub-adults and adults of any number. If an adult Ayneh is seeking young family members, they may be allowed to visit the complexes to establish bonds and adopt them as siblings – and they as a race develop very close, loving bonds with others far faster than humans do.

It is very uncommon for a spawnling “graduating” as a sub-adult to not have family members. If they do not, they stay at their complexes until they are old enough to live on their own, forming their family as adults.

Gender Identity
The Ayneh don’t necessarily conform to gender roles and outer appearance “matching” their sex – that is decidedly a human construct.

Appearance
– Body and face: Varies widely in structure, weight, and height. The average Ayneh has much greater strength, speed and endurance than the average human.

– Skin: Barring human skin colours, Ayneh skin can be anything from pure white to pastels, bright jewel tones, or deepest black.

– Patterns: Skin patterns are similar to that of various animals and are usually a differing colour to the individual’s base skin colour.

– Horns: Not all Ayneh have horns, but the ones who do have anywhere from 1-2 main horns, sometimes with several smaller sharp nubs. These horns can resemble those of rams, antelopes, stags, goats, and even unicorns. They are very lightweight but durable.

– Eyes: Ayneh have between 2-6 eyes, though most have 2 or 3. Sclera and irises may be any colour, and the irises usually glow. Pupils may be circular, slitted, or goatlike. They have excellent vision, especially in very low light.

– Hair: Can be any texture, just like human hair.

– Mouths: All Ayneh have pointed tongues and sharp teeth (though their four front teeth and molars are more like those of humans). Their tongues and the inside flesh of their mouths are any colour – for instance, the inside of Amnon’s mouth is dark blue and his tongue is the same cyan of his eyes.

Abilities
All Ayneh are born with 1-3 inherent abilities they hone in on over time.

Examples:
– Moxxi’s abilities are focusing electricity and being able to detect portals and their health/status.
– Diem’s abilities are sheer speed and fast reflexes.
– Amnon’s abilities are speed and endurance in and under water.

Ageing and Lifespan
Once an Ayneh reaches adulthood, they age extremely slowly. They will appear to be under 30 for many decades, and by the time they reach the end of their lives at around 80-90 years old they only look about 55. Most Ayneh will be aware of when it’s time to pass on and can therefore plan and have their loved ones around them when the day happens.

Charms, Glamour & Possession
Ayneh can easily learn how to use charms to alter themselves or objects in some way. A very nervous individual may use a charm to appear more confident to others. Someone may put a charm on an item to make it absolutely irresistible, though this is illegal for people selling things.

Glamours are something not everyone knows how to do, but it’s a very useful skill to have if someone is going to be around humans. A basic glamour will make an Ayneh look like their Founder, which can lead to some mischief, and a very skilled Ayneh can make multiple disguises, as can Guardians. Glamours only work on humans; Ayneh and Guardians see right through it.

Possession is a very controversial skill that is easily learned and can only be used by Ayneh on humans for a short time. The individual can merge their body with the human’s and take over, putting the human’s consciousness to sleep while the body is in use. The Ayneh needs to disengage with care because it can cause body or brain damage to one or both individuals if done aggressively.

Sunlight Exposure
Being made for and living in a nighttime realm, the Ayneh don’t do well in direct sunlight. Their skin burns very easily and can blister – they are very vulnerable to skin cancers. Their eyes are also very sensitive to sunlight. Being in a room with bright, indirect sunlight will still hurt their eyes, but they can manage. If they are possessing a human, they are safe within the human’s individual tolerance for sun.

Weapons
Ayneh weapons are forged with great power – and only Ayneh can wield them. Their power is so great that just touching one may harm a human, and combined with an Ayneh’s sheer speed and dexterity they can be much more dangerous and effective than a human’s gun.