<aside> <img src="/icons/chat_lightgray.svg" alt="/icons/chat_lightgray.svg" width="40px" /> @Lins We couldn't come up with anything better, so now our entire fictional universe—basically just Shang-La and Nowhere—is called LingrimmVerse (LGV). If it sounds terrible, well… blame our creative process.
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<aside> ⚠️ @Lins Of course, this article is just the tip of the iceberg, and we've left out some details to keep things from getting too overwhelming (there’s already plenty to take in). A lot of what we skipped ties into the plot of the Crown of Leaves, but overall, this text about the Lords and the concept of worlds shouldn’t be too much of a spoiler.
Emphasis on too. Meaning, yes, there are spoilers.
If you read it, some parts of TCOL might make more sense, and it could even help refine your theories. But if you don’t, you won’t be missing anything crucial—the novel takes things in a slightly different direction anyway.
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The worlds in LGV aren’t connected by a single overarching concept—each one is shaped and develops according to its own rules, brought in by its Lord.
At first, every world is empty and ownerless, a blank slate with no defining traits—like an untouched file, a fresh page, or a lifeless template. Then, out of nowhere, a Lord appears, carrying their own Design, and starts shaping the world. But this doesn’t always mean creation—after all, not all Lords are creators.
Where do they come from? Why are they so bound to their Designs and the rules they set? Why aren’t they all driven by creation? You could ask them a hundred times, but don’t expect an answer. They just don’t respond.
Each Lord possesses not only their own inviolable rules but also a unique resource through which they shape and build their world. Take Phollie, for instance. Grimm and I often refer to her in the feminine, but she doesn't actually have a gender, so feel free to address her however you prefer. In English, this is simplified with the pronoun they.
Phollie is an artistic, creative, and passionate individual—sometimes sensitive, but never experiencing a creative block, which, admittedly, makes us a bit envious. Her resources are ink and constellations; she herself is an endless source of these materials. Her Design is to create. She invents beings, characters, and stories, detesting boredom and stagnation. If one of her creations fails to meet expectations, a mere wave of her hand summons her familiars to swarm and tear it apart.
Everything Phollie creates is composed of ink. The stars within are fragments of her thoughts, and constellations form words or even phrases, assembling into encrypted messages. Stars give shape to the ink, and within a living, sentient being, they coalesce into a Pearl: an analogue of a soul or heart—in simpler terms, a Shang. Notably, the concept of Shang originated from Phollie.
Phollie seldom appears in person before her creations; instead, her image is omnipresent on advertisements and banners. At nearly every café entrance, you'll encounter a poster featuring Phollie dressed as a waitress or in an elegant suit and tie. In messaging apps, users frequently share adorable emoji sets depicting her recognizable freckled face adorned with signature black round glasses. It's unclear whether she actively monitors her creations, but her recorded voice cheerfully comments on the conclusion of each successful storyline played out in the adventure bureau.
Lords can assume countless faces, yet they often maintain a specific appearance that aligns with their aesthetic preferences and character. Phollie's human mascot is consistently two-dimensional and is commonly associated with the Inigo company, which dominates the world of Nowhere. However, her true form is that of an eyeless, feathered deer with coral-like antlers. She doesn't require sight, as she listens to the songs of constellations that weave through her creations, familiars, cities, mountains, and inky depths. Occasionally, a single eye opens on her deer's face when Phollie needs to observe something unfamiliar, though such instances are rare.
In any given world, only one Lord can exist; they cannot seize each other's realms. Their own Designs and rules prevent such conflicts; they have no interest in others' domains and tend to avoid one another.
However, Lord Hunger deviates from this norm. He had no intention of encroaching upon Phollie's domain, but he was deeply intrigued by tsourai who migrated from Nowhere to Shang-La. Creations and their abilities are insignificant compared to the might of the Lords; even if they bring a fragment of their world with them—as tsourai did by carrying Phollie's ink—their adherence to old orders and ways of life inevitably leads to collapse. They must adapt to the world's framework that aligns with the master's Design.
But there's a problem: tsourai are Phollie's creations. They have no connection to Hunger, who, by nature, is not a creator at all. His Design lies in a passion for cycles, the endless replacement of the new with the old, whereas tsourai are beings familiar only with the concept of infinity without any development or decay. Hunger found them immensely fascinating; he wanted to claim them and subject them to cycles, but this idea came to nothing.
Stream—literally the antithesis of the unchanging tranquility surrounding tsourai—proved detrimental due to Hunger's interest in them. This led to the terms Stream and Flat / Stille / Timeless, denoting the territories of Hunger and tsourai, respectively.
Tsourai possessed the ability to create puppets as helpers, using their ink reserves and fragments of their own Pearls. Lord Hunger lured these puppets out of Flat and endowed them with physical bodies, or La, ensuring they could never return to their creators. Once subjected to cycles, the puppets became mortal: they began to reproduce, die, and be born; they needed sleep; they experienced seasons; when hungry, they ate; when tired, they slept. These simple actions brought Hunger endless delight.
Despite this, Hunger remained fascinated by tsourai. Fearing that his persistence might lead to the complete annihilation of these remarkable immortal beings, he decided to leave them in peace but bound them with inviolable rules and taboos (geasa) to prevent them from harming mortals.