Remember that one bit I made with Phoenix!Tango?

I decided to develop it into a proper AU, which I'll start writing once I finish either the s7!War AU or Soul Trade.

First things first, some concept art I made that was also just practice for backgrounds. I know the colours are messy but shhhhh.

1. Merman!xB

At the point when I made this, I had seen xB's skin one (1) time, and I accidentally conflated it with Pixl's skin, but you get what I was trying to get at, right?

Moving on, merpeople in this AU are one of the more lesser-known species. They're able to walk on land, automatically shapeshifting between forms, so xB has to be careful to not let anyone see him swimming. This is a problem, because while merpeople can walk on land, it's not ideal, and they dry out very easily, needing to be fully soaked in water at least every two days, even less if they spend any time in the Nether.

Merfolk language is comprised of mostly humming noises and clicks, accompanied by hand gestures, and it just doesn't sound right outside of the water. Most merfolk have at least minor waterbending, too, and this sometimes forms the merfolk equivalent of getting overly excited and doing big hand gestures along with whatever you're saying.

The way the breathing works actually isn't magic at all. Whenever the area on a merperson's neck where their gills are gets wet, their gills reflexively open and their nostrils reflexively close, and vice versa whenever their head is out of the water. 

Feel free to correct me on any of this if this seems unrealistic. I'm a space nerd, not an ocean nerd. I know nothing.

2. Imp!Impulse

I am one of the most hilarious people alive.

Anyway, the idea of why Impulse's name sounds like his species is because that's not his name. One of his first jobs was at the embassy between sprites and devils, back during one of the times when the sprites decided that evil might be fun sometimes. One of his friends warned him that sprites liked to do funky things with names, so instead of using his actual name, he made up a moniker, taking his species and a few syllables that sounded vaguely like his name and throwing them together.

This actually ended up saving his life when the sprites decided to mess around and attack the embassy, and now, whenever the sprites are allied with the unseelie pixies and other forces of evil, Impulse is the ambassador just out of sheer necessity. The reason he's on Hermitcraft right now is because the sprites are in the mood to be not-evil right now.

He's so tired and overworked all the time, and doesn't know how to healthy sleep schedule, because that's the only way to get ahead in devil society, or even maintain such a high-ranking position as Impulse has. He basically has had eyebags non-stop for the past two centuries. Part of this is because, as an imp, he isn't one of the most magically-powerful devils, and is in fact the only imp to hold a position of power for over five centuries.

3. Pixie!Scar and Sprite!Cub

Don't ask me what's up with the poses, I have no idea how that works, I was just trying a thing.

Anyway, the fae bois!

Let's start with pixies. They're divided into two factions, or 'courts': the seelie and the unseelie. Seelie pixies tend to be shorter, and have green eyes, and don't let their claws grow out. They have a cultural disposition to being good. Unseelie pixies thend to be taller, and have reddish eyes, and more pronounced canines. They have a cultural disposition towards evil. 

Scar grew up in the seelie court, and he's tall (for a pixie), has green eyes, less sharpened claws, and more pronounced canines. Badtimes grew up in the unseelie court, and he's shorter, has red eyes, pointed claws, and smaller canines. Scar honestly does try to be good, but sometimes he slips up, while Badtimes does mean stuff to survive, but doesn't really like it. There's a simple reason for this: [spoiler].

Pixies use their magic through 'dusts'. They have the innate ability to summon a certain amount of dust each day. Most use what they need, and then use up the rest of their daily allotment to build up a reserve. Scar is no exception to this. There are eight types of pixie dust: red (creates a shield), orange (creates objects), yellow (reveals invisible people), green (mind-controls people), blue (lights up an area), cyan (turns people invisible), indigo (heals injuries), violet (baleful polymorph), and magenta (levitates people). Scar is mildly allergic to magenta dust.

Now, sprites are real wild cards. They regularly switch allegiances every couple decades, just for the hell of it. Even if they're the same alignment as you, you can't really trust them, as shown by the fiasco at the devil embassy, when the sprites turned on the devils for no reason, and only one devil survived. Pretty much the only thing that can guarantee a sprite's loyalty is having their name.

Sprites mostly depend upon name-magic, altering someone's state of being by using their name, but they are capable of doing more generic environment-based effects, too. It's just not as powerful.

Sprites are generally smaller than pixies, even when both are disguised as humans. This dows hold true for Cub and Scar.

4. Phoenix!Tango

Can you tell that this one was much more rushed than the others?

Now, about phoenixes. They are, primarily, birb. However, they can transform into a human disguise, and most (including Tango) do. They also have an intermediate form, which is the form Tango has taken in the drawing.

Phoenixes sometimes have to burn to prevent death. This happens under any of the following conditions: it's been 10 years since the last burn, they've been mortally wounded in a place that doesn't have respawn, they've been caught in a death loop, they suffer a death that wouldn't allow respawn normally, they've respawned 100 times since the last burn, or they want to burn for whatever reason.

A phoenix lives for just over 200 years. Sometime during the 200th year of their life, something will happen to the phoenix called the 'final burn'. The phoenix will catch fire, like any other burn, but in the ashes, instead of the phoenix's healed form, will be an egg. This will hatch into a phoenix with some physical similarities to their previous life, as well as taking on a name that has the same first two letters as their previous incarnation. For example, Tango's previous life was called 'Tally'.

There are two ways to permanently kill a phoenix. One is to wound them such that they must burn, then put them in a situation that they physically can't catch fire until they properly die. The other is to make them reveal their 'inner flame', a fire which represents their physical health, and then put it out.

A couple other important bits of phoenix lore: phoenixes represent the liminal space between life and death, and as such, are able to see the grim reaper, even when he's in his true form. Phoenixes also have firebending, although they can burn themselves out if they use it too much, which leads to them being dazed and out of it until they can reignite themselves. They're also all absolutely terrified of water.

I'll explain the other Hermits, and maybe even Legacy SMP (I'm thinking of making a Legacy part to this AU, see) in a later chapter, once I've actually drawn them.

Moving on, the plot of the Hermitcraft side to this AU. There are three arcs. The titles are subject to change.

Arc 1: Eyes Opened

At the start of the AU, the Hermits are completely oblivious to each others' natures. However, one by one, they start to figure out that there's more going on than meets the eye. This leads to a Magic Problems Support Group forming, as well as a lot of hilarious escapades. Tango also gets to lose his damn mind over thinking that his friends are dead twice.

The idea that there's also a black market for commodities harvested from supernatural entities, like phoenix feathers, dragon scales etc., is introduced. This will be important later.

Arc 2: True Nature

The evil hermits each have a go at attacking the server, and then at least one hermit decides that they're tired of being nice, and go absolutely apeshit. False also receives a message from the Valkyrie high council, and decides to start helping Iskall become even more epic at PvP than they already were.

Scar also finds out about his backstory, which is nice, and Etho, Tango and Wels have a boys' night. This arc is basically just a collection of shorter stories that take place between arcs 1 and 3.

Arc 3: Hunted

Something comes onto the server, and one by one, the Hermits start to disappear. Eventually, when it's down to just Beef, Zed, Doc, Iskall and Impulse, they realise that they're being hunted down for whatever they can provide to the supernatural black market. And then Impulse gets captured.

I won't say much more, but the devil mechanics get some serious spotlight, and Keralis gets to do some awesome things, as well as there being a few moments that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL to do with Among Us.

And that's the AU! Thank you to the ever-wonderful ausforyou for helping me develop the lore.

I've been Entropy, peace out from the present!