Welcome to The Sapient Condition!

The Sapient Condition is a project that I've been working on, in various different forms, for several years. In its modern form, it is an amalgam of various different ideas, characters, and stories I've had over the years.

To start, what is The Sapient Condition about? Well, parallel to our world is another with no one name, but is often referred the World of Magic or Temere by English speakers, where, as the name implies, magic exists. Magic is an extention of any sentient beings' "soul", for lack of a better term. This "soul" is a manifestation of a being's thoughts, memories, experiences, beliefs, personality, and behavior; practically anything else is unknown about the nature of the soul aside from "it exists", and its as understood marginally better than conciousness. In any case, any sentient being can use this magic to influence their surroundings, with the power of this ability depending on the strength of the "soul" and the things that go into it. As such, a worm may just be able to move dirt marginally more efficiently, while a creature with a highly advanced nervous system may be able to do much more.

This is well expressed in the five sapients of the World of magic: gorgons, gremlins, harpies, trolls, and leviathans. Like the world itself, there is no one name for them as there is no one name for humans; for the sake of simplicity, I will be using the names most often used by English speakers for the species when talking of them outside the main story.

The culmination of magic and "souls", however, are in Wavewalkers. Beings that straddle the line between godhood, they are all powerful, immortal by all means except themselves, and can travel between worlds on a whim. Despite their immense power and immortality, all living wavewalkers are mostly well adjusted beings, due in part to a few factors but ultimately the efforts of Purple, the oldest wavewalker in the world. They are technically human, but is quite removed from any sort of shared identity with them, and have spent the last 20,000 years or so trying to keep the peace among gods and mortals, prefering kind and gentle methods but not above less savory means. They will be one of the two main perspective characters in the story, as we follow their efforts to keep an increasingly disparate world together, all the while a conspiracy is brewing to undo all their hard work.

The other perspective character is Tulip McKenzie, a newly graduated student at Ravenswood High School in the eponymous town of Ravenswood, Massachusets. Living with her mother and her brother, she has long known her powers but always thought she was alone in this regard (aside from dubious online groups). A chance encounter with Purple and their circus (its how they blow off steam, let a god have a day off) gives her a chance to go to a university in Stormhome, capital of the Republics of the Stormsea (the politics involved are too long to go into here). There, she has slice-of-life hijinks with her newfound friends. But unknown to her, powers far greater than she realizes have a keen interest in her . . .

In addition to the main story, I will also be filling out the Compendium for Temere, a place for me to talk about the setting and worldbuilding in a more direct capacity. Expect talk of creatures, cultures, geography, history, and other things that might not be addressed directly in the story but are relevant to undertsanding the world.

Enjoy your stay!