CoSM:About

Look at this cool title card! I made it in like 2021 and then promptly never used it. So here it is!

The Cradle of Songs is a multi-part project created by me, Camille, or Max, or Rowan, whichever name you like best. Ideas had been floating around since before then, but it probably properly started in 2017, with my family's moving to Italy, marking a severe turning point in my life. I was 14 back then, and this project was my answer to that, arguably turning it into a trauma response.

In this article I will explain what I can about it in a sort of FAQ-appendix-infodump fashion. Have fun reading!

General questions

What is this?

Well, I did describe it as a multi-part project, but that's a little vague, isn't it? Truth be told, I don't even really know how to answer this question myself. The best way I can describe it is a mix between a universe-building project, with small worldbuilding projects lying underneath, and a trauma dump, with much of my grievances expressed and extrapolated, a good exercise in processing the Really Bad Stuff™ that happened to me. It's a healing process, an expression of what makes me me in the form of a nebulous "place where stuff happens." But it's also a chance for me to have fun and toy around with the things that I like, such as culture studies, art, writing, men, dog people, among others.

What's with all the dicks and sex and weird stuff (which is sometimes related to dicks and sex)?

I have a difficult relationship with sexuality, because, shocker, I am mostly traumatised on that front. The way I explore that trauma, and express it in a way that is healthy (at least according to my psychologist), is through worldbuilding! I preemptively apologise if anything in here makes you uncomfortable, but the disclaimer I added that appears in every single article until you dismiss it was made for a reason, and I really don't like tapping the sign.

Can I help you with your worldbuilding? Can I collaborate in any way?

I am extremely picky with who gets to contribute to my worldbuilding. My main reasoning is that I want whatever comes out of these projects, like say a book, to be mine. I do let some people help me (e.g. my friends Overnecked and Wren, who mostly help me with languages for Moonsong), and they'll get credit if I ever get to use their contributions in some professional work. But I want to keep the number of people I gotta credit to be manageably low. I'm not good at keeping track. Sorry.

My second reasoning is that very few people actually know how to match my stuff's vibe. It's rare for me to find someone that is actually in the same wavelength for these kinds of things, so I'm rightfully (I think) a little selective.

The constituent parts of the Cradle of Songs

There are four main parts to this project:

World

World is easily the biggest part of CoS, and my favourite one to work on. It revolves around a planet called World (shocker!), a project by the interstellar Search and Discovery Organisation to re-evolve the lost species of Earth after it was hit on the 18th of February, 2003 with another Mars-sized asteroid similar to the one that created the moon, although this one left the planet barren and inhospitable for good. The SDO, having become arguably "fans" of the Earth for being the first planet outside their star system that they found (but did not make contact with for fear of scaring humanity), were reasonably pretty distraught, so they set out to save what they could and study it further.

World is not Earth in that it resides in a different star system, and does not have the same orbital qualities as Earth except for its distance to its star (although there is an infinitesimally small difference), and the type of its star, a near-analogue to our sun. The SDO's involvement was minimal, just enough to kickstart the planet's ecosystem and gently guide it into resembling the dead Earth during the eons (!) it took to develop. They mostly succeeded, although some things simply could not re-evolve, and some others evolved in different ways, both innovating new species, even whole genera, but at the cost of others, which existed on Earth, whose ecological niches were supplanted by the new species. One of these was the humans, supplanted by a canid species, felds. To make matters stranger, a whole other kind of life evolved alongside cytotic life on accident, making use of different biochemistry, partly influenced by the chemistry of a different universe, which the SDO used for easier interstellar travel. Oops! Either way, this is what caused World to be populated by another sapient species that evolved convergently with felds, the clúnydd.

As for what World is to me, it's my chance to explore anthropology and history, mostly, although confined to the limits of two different species and the interactions between them.

The SDO

The Search and Discovery Organisation, often shortened to SDO, is an inter-stellar, inter-species, inter-cultural organisation of sophonts that have achieved long-distance spacefaring, among a couple other ones that were either intentionally or accidentally (as is the case with felds and clúnydd) interacted with before they accomplished such a feat. These are, as of now, nine species. And this part of the project is, for me, an opportunity to explore speculative biology, its intersection with culture studies, and really cool sci-fi stuff.

Earth

"Wait, wasn't the earth destroyed or something?" Well, yes, my little avid reader! What a clever little guy, you! Why does this exist? Why is this part of the Cradle? I know, but you shouldn't. I have stuff planned here, mu-ha-ha-ha. Lol!

The Warawara Expanse

What's this? What's going on? Where am I? Don't worry, reader, this is but my little high fantasy project! While technically not a part of the larger CoS universe, I'd say it's at the very least tangential. Much of the mythology of WW is shared with the various cultures of World, especially that of the Avannians (Phyreans, Hearnish, Hogharrhyans, etc). It's divided into two (and maybe more in the future) parts:

Moonsong

Moonsong is the mellower of the two projects, although that does not mean it's completely peaceful. It's set in an infinitely expanding flat plane, more specifically in one small part of this plane, in an area of about 35280000 km², known as Álm. This area centers around a biological structure called the Tower, which generates light and heat. The namesake of the project, the Moon, is a dormant Æon (a force of nature, a sort of god, although not truly conscious) that changes in appearance, controlling the flow of the elements.

Faolsong

Faolsong is, in contrast to Moonsong, grittier, and definitely rougher around the edges. It started as a short-lived DND campaign with my now ex-boyfriend, and combines fantasy elements with sci-fi, in a NieR fashion. Its plot revolves around a conflict between the inhabitants of the Mainland, a menagerie of various species (many of which also found on Moonsong), and the army of Bellerophon, sci-fi-medieval-styled human androids.

CoS-specific FAQ

When is "now"/the "present time" of CoS?

This is a difficult question as there is no real answer. A lot of things happen at different times, and there is no one point to anchor oneself with. For the purposes of most things in this wiki, however, I am sticking with the World year of 1732 (in SDO's base-60 standard for year notation, Sq) or the Llun Maf Hwyr of 578, comparable to the Earth year of 2020 technology-wise, with the beginning of technology imports from the SDO underway.

This timescale matches up with the following in-universe year-tracking systems:

Planet	Decimal	Base-60
Elm	3.227.051.802	4903Gg
Julee	3.917.741.238	52HfRI
Earth	2.524.350.859	3EkmYJ
World	1732	Sq
F. Land	10.086.414.868	CwGLsS
Kanno	5.973.962.548	7evE2S
Celiane	1.320.093.212	1fpWXW
Maaya	1.341.359.755	1hTxtt
Arai	3.924.025.465	52kl4P
Badalamenti	926.389.391	1BSoNB
Almendra	4.001.531.511	58jaVp
Lumi	7.415.592.068	9WBQf8
Torch	1.328.597.769	1gUsu9

Warawara-specific FAQ

How does gravity work in the All?

For simplicity's sake, I'm not doing anything fancy with gravity. In the All, you just go straight down, perpendicular to the ground.

How come there is mostly Earth life on Álm?

I don't know, and I honestly don't want to get too much into that. There just is. Apples and plums and bears and gum trees are all here for you to enjoy, along with some new species at my own leisure.

Wait, so Álm is only 6000 km x 6000 km?

Yep. It's designed to be a little small. I like it that way. Makes travelling around it a bit less cumbersome and a lot more fun I think. Long distances would be like a month of travel.

Where are each of the ilks located within Álm?

Eheu! The aforementioned map.

I have a bit of a rough map for this which I've made a while ago. Along with the map I've made a table to give a general idea.

Kin	General area
Almarkin	Andinor
Drakes	Cosmopolitan (i.e. a diaspora around the whole of Álm)
Danar	Towerward Danadur
Faolkin	Hóradur and Arðiodur
Jüttkin	Lea
Kanarkin	Hedron
Syolkin	Nightward Danadur