image cred: https://pixabay.com/users/472301-472301/, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

There are open questions about certain things in the Feengrenze that need answering, and I am currently stuck on how to provide answers. To that end, I will put the questions to you, my readers. Okay, enough preamble, let’s get to the part where you make your voice heard.

The wish that was never expanded upon

First, on our question of canon ending is A Beltane to Remember Part 3: The Beltane Ball. To review the adventure, we saw newly youthened try to seduce Fredrick during the Beltane Ball, only for a sudden attack from Fredrick’s vengeful mother-in-law to derail the plan. At the end of the adventure, Fionnuala comes across the two in a full-on cat fight between the two princesses and orders them to make up, offering a joint wish to settle the feud once and for all.  I never settled on a canon for the wish; I only gave three possible good ending suggestions. So I am putting it up to you to decide which ending was the canon one.

To review the endings.

• The two queens. If the wish was for both Aoibheann and Muirín to be Fredrick’s queens, the players find Aoibheann and Muirín fighting over the next dance with Fredrick, although it’s more sisterly rivalry than catfight between romantic rivals. They are dressed like Aoibheann was earlier, except Aoibheann’s is pink and Muirín’s is aquamarine. Both wear tiaras. If the players ask any other guests, they get a long, implausible story about how Fredrick ended up with two queens. It will take some time before the two queens can live peacefully under one castle roof.
• A Fredrick for Muirín. The wish changes reality so that Fredrick has a twin brother named Admiral Klaus Von Mountainheart. Reality has changed so that Fredrick and Klaus have always been brothers, with Klaus being the Duke of the Isles and Coasts and serving as Admiral of the Royal Navy. The brothers are identical in personality, temperament, and appearance, except that Klaus has snow white fur. Moreover, Klaus has always been Muirín’s husband. Muirín is initially hesitant about her new husband, but once Klaus proves himself as charming as Fredrick, she is delighted with the results. All the animosity she has towards Aoibheann vanishes instantly, and she embraces her new sister in law.
• The Mirror Kingdom. The wish changes reality so that there are two versions of New Mountainheart: one for Aoibheann and one for Muirín, in two separate universes, each with its version of Fredrick. Muirín and Aelaina disappear from this universe, and a new Duchess of the Coasts and Isles takes her place. The royal couple and the players learn that the realms are connected by a mirror in the castle parlor. It turns out that the two kingdoms are perfect mirrors of each other, except for who Frederick’s consort and children are. Muirín is as happy as can be with her new life. Her lingering animosity towards Aoibheann is long gone, and she even suggests that they arrange playdates for Lillabella and Aeleina.

Sliberberg has a vibe and style… What is it?

New Mountainheart is an outlier in a world where everybody is looping back to the beginning after a few decades of drunken false progress. It is the one place where actual progress—slow, faltering, uneven progress—is happening, and Sliberberg is where the progress is most pronounced. That said, I don’t know how far it has progressed from its roots in 16th-century Germany or what that style and vibe should be. I have ideas, but also a lot of analysis paralysis. So where should I look for my inspiration?

Charles Perrault’s Paris:

Sliberberg is a decant era that recalls the Baroque period. Sliberberg is wealthy and prosperous. The nobles hold moonlit balls and parties practically every night. Magic is fashionable, and wizards and sorcerers are considered part of a polite society, and magic items are vanity items.
Elaborate decorations bedeck every building with ornate scrollwork, columns, gold leaf, and plaster cherubs. The nobles spare no expense in garnishing themselves with silk coats embroidered with precious metals, and the sort of gowns reminiscent of the one Belle wore in the ballroom scene from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Powdered wigs are the accessory of choice for the nobility.
The city feels like a set on a stage, and everybody thinks that they are actors in a grand pageant.

The Brothers Grimm’s Berlin:

Sliberberg has grown restless with so-called progress and seeks a return to the past, like the romantics of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The first rumbling of what will eventually be called industrialization has started with a few proto-factories powered by water, muscle, and magic springing up on Tannery Row. Still, it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the magical community, the poets, and the feyfolk who seek to return to their roots.

Magical streetlamps increasingly light the winding, narrow streets between the half-timber and tree buildings. Neogothic architecture is all the rage with the upper crust, and brick is becoming more common in the lower wards of the city. The fashion mirrors the real-world regency style with waistcoats, frock coats, high collars, long skirts, bonnets, and caps in muted tones. 

There is an overall sense that the past needs to be rediscovered and reinterpreted.

Hans Christian Andersen’s Copenhagen:

Progress is accelerating and Sliberberg is poised to drag the rest of the Feengrenze along with it, whether it wants it or not. Magical industrialization is in full swing, and large swaths of Tannry Row are being torn down to make way for alchemical works and foundries. The Sliberberg Sentinel runs a feature on some discovery in engineering and magic practically every day, and there is a feeling that anything is possible.
The thin, steep, winding streets remain, but gaslighting is omnipresent now. Brick buildings with glass windows are starting to overtake half-timber in the lower wards, and iron decorations are everywhere. The fashion mirrors the real-world Victorian era with tophats, gowns, and waistcoats.
The city has become a haven for dreamers and instigators who seek to do the impossible.

Terry Pratchett’s Ankh-Morpork:

A kitchen sink aesthetic that borrows liberally from the previous three options and beyond. It’s incongruous, it’s nonsensical, and it’s fabulous. This option will continue the present course of the setting, but gives me a lot more liberty and license to throw whatever I like into the mix.

What about the Tone

The Feengrenze is a massive farce derived from a thousand ongoing farces. Everybody is stuck in decades- and century-long loops, stories denied their conclusions and forced to return to the beginning with a slightly different cast. Nobody notices this because everybody is operating on mythic and fairytale logic.

How should I deliver my Worldbuilding

Last question. I am a worldbuilder, that much is clear. I do worldbuilding essays, adventures, and fiction on this blog set in the Feengrenze. Which would you prefer I do more of? I will use this to determine what projects I work on next year.

The polls will be open until Friday the fifth and the results will be announced in my next piece on the twelfth