World

The setting of this story takes place in the world of Land of the Lustrous, in which humanity has gone extinct after six separate meteor impacts destroyed much of the world. Eons later, the only place above water is a lone island where sentient crystals live, and are hunted for sport by mysterious forces from the six moons created from the meteor strikes.

I like the original story a lot! The setting is cool and esoteric and I wanted to create something derivative of it because of its coolness. But I also wanted to give myself some creative freedom, so I just made my own island for the sake of this story.

Geography & Ecology

If there's only one landmass remaining, how could new islands be formed? Volcanoes, that's one way. And so, I put together a little volcanic islet to play around with.

It's a little island about 5 km long, far off (but not so much so that it's completely inaccessible) from the original one. The climate is somewhat milder, but it still experiences hot summers and cold winters. There is one main, raised cone, as well as an impact crater that the volcano has adopted as a second vent. The volcano, over the course of the story, has erupted many different types of lava. The volcano regularly spews out sulfur-exclusive flows.

Gems aren't born directly from the volcano as the heat would destroy the microbes that give them life, but those born on the island either formed from volcanic gases or were dug out of the volcanic soil, having sufficiently cooled down to host microbes. The volcano is less active than it has been in the past, and new gems are very rarely born on the island anymore. There is a volcanic fissure somewhat nearby (take a shot every time I say a word with "volcano" in it!) where gems are born in larger quantities, but it is never visited by anyone other than the president of the volcanic island, and no live gems are ever brought from it.

The biome of the island is a coastal meadow mostly filled with introduced species of grass and a flax-like plant. Butterflies have also been introduced. Gems import organisms by going on excursions to the original island and taking dormant eggs or seeds during winter when the seas freeze and can be walked over. Native organisms include terrestrial bacteria, lichens and slime molds, and semi-aquatic crustaceans.

In the seas surrounding the island, mineral-rich runoff from volcanic activity fuels excessive algae growth. Red tide events are common and drive away multicellular sea-life. At night, some algae blooms glow.

Architecture

As opposed to living in a single large building, the gems that live there inhabit small buildings made of plaster as well as enormous mollusk shells sourced by members of the settlement whose job is to locate resources. One shell is allotted to each job division, so a shell is normally inhabited by a pair. The body whorl is used for workstations and common areas, and the spire is used for sleeping and storage.

I never got around to finishing all of them, but you get the jist, right?

Fashion

The gems that live there also make their own clothing, having introduced their primary fiber plant from back home to the island. They have a uniform style of dress, consisting of a pair of wide-leg pants, a sleeveless shirt, simple flat shoes, a blanket and a belt.

Unlike on the original island, where colorful dyes are derived from gallnuts on rare trees and thus are used sparingly, the gems here have found plentiful sources of color to use on their clothes. Black is taken from iron salts. Reds are taken from crushing a crustacean found on the beaches. Yellows are taken from lichens. Blues are taken from harvested copper salts. Those primary colors are usually overdyed to create secondary colors. Purple isn't produced by overdyeing red and blue, though, and instead is made uniquely from another kind of lichen. Algaes are used to produce unique bluish green and pinkish orange colors, but these dyes are not lightfast and the colors can be replicated using overdyeing anyways. Algae dyes are used for special occasions.

The textile workers' uniform. Someone who makes clothes or paper would wear this.

The resource workers' uniform. Someone who farms or explores would wear this.

The repair workers' uniform. Someone who makes tools or fixes wounds would wear this.

The president's uniform.

The icebreaker's uniform. Because it's dark in the winter, this uniform uses algae dye.

The livestock workers' uniform. This one is introduced later in the story.

The recordkeepers' uniform. This one is introduced later in the story.

The strategists' uniform. This one is introduced later in the story.

❮ ❯

Because of material shortages, the gems on the volcanic island only put white powder on their faces as opposed to back home where they'd do so on their entire bodies. Some don't even do that. The powder helps block UV light, erosion and salt damage so these gems must take care to not end up sunbleached or weathered from the elements.