Feature Friday #6: Tellest by Michael DeAngelo

When I think of Eotera, my own creation, I think about how much time I’ve spent developing the idea of it in my head. Years and years I’ve been dreaming, day and night, about how this planet would come together. How it would look, and feel, and smell, and . . . taste?

Well, it some ways, the time I’ve spend doesn’t hold a candle to Michael DeAngelo’s world of Tellest.

Michael is a friend of mine who I like to imagine as myself, but a few decades into the future. His ideas began around the year 2000, and he’s been working on his worlds and stories for almost as long as I’ve been alive!

And, as he’s come along, he’s amassed quite the team of artists, writers, voice actors, and other such professional to bring his stories to life. It’s something that, as I sit here writing this, that I am completely in awe of. But, I also can’t wait to reach a similar point where people are so in love with my own worlds and stories that they just can’t stop themselves from wanting to take part.

Here’s a better image from this blog’s featured banner:

There are many, many more like it on his website:

www.tellest.com

Here’s just a little about his world, told from the most renowned historian on Tellest, Gaston Camlann:

‘I’ve never looked down upon such beauty, as the day I stood upon the peak of Mount In’Adell.’
            Thundar Proudfist wrote that in his book, “The Mountains of Lustra”.  The writings were a memoir of a minotaur, who had been bred into a warlike society, who longed for a change to his scenery.  He traveled the whole of Lustra, before finally ascending the aforementioned mountain in the final passage of his book.
            Tellest is an aged world.  The trees and mountains are testament of that.  Wisdom abounds in the landscape surrounding us, and the wind carries the secrets of old.
            The gods created Tellest from a hunk of molten lava.  They breathed life onto its surface, cooling the fires wrought upon the plane.  They cried tears of joy, which created the grand oceans and lakes.  They cultivated Tellest’s solid form, and grew great fields and trees and mountains.  Through the gods, Tellest was born.
            Life on Tellest was born soon after.  The gods populated the planet with all manner of beast, from the lowly mouse, to the great dragon.  Multiple types of flowers and herbs sprang up from the dirt, helping to color the once dismal world.  But Tellest still lacked beings of greater knowledge.
            The gods decided upon three greater races that would live upon the surface of Tellest.  Each would live of their own free will, able to make their own mistakes or victories.  It was up to the three to decide how they would proceed through life.
            The elves were the first to walk this earthen plane.  They were the first mortal children of the gods.  They were jealous of their creators, though, and many had forsaken them.  The dwarves were created next.  Their loyalty to the gods has earned them great favor, and many had thrived with the blessings of Golernus.  Humans took presence afterwards, formed in the true image of the gods themselves.
            The three races vied for the love of their creators, warring and meddling with each other until the Elves banished humans to the depths of the deepest mountains, the dwarves also playing their part in the third race’s exile.
            But this greatly angered the gods.
            They had not created mankind to simply be wiped out, never to be seen again.  A cataclysm of rage and fury tore the world apart, ripping the world asunder and sinking parts of it to the ocean.  Volcanoes shot up from the depths of the seas, creating new, hostile lands.  Storms shattered the single land mass into a series of continents and smaller isles.
            Following the Sundering, the gods created  scores of other creatures, and other races.  The orcs, gnolls, kobolds, kaja, lagano, minotaur, and many others took face on the planet, each with their own unique views on life.  If the elves and dwarves thought the world was theirs alone, they were mistaken.
            Then, over nine hundred years ago, the first of us men began climbing from our earthen holes.  We escaped from our exile, appearing in every corner of the world, ready to live anew upon the surface.  We had forgiven the elves and dwarves, and found new allies waiting for us in the orcs, minotaur, kobolds and kaja.
            Together, this world is ours.
            Together, we will thrive.

I hope you enjoy his stuff!

Stay strange, strangers.