World of Drawing Kingdoms
Places
Planet Illi
Planet Illi is the home of John, Kuririn, and many alien species. Illi is the third planet from its parent star, called Cipher. Its life energy, derived from an extra-dimensional source, spawns new, bizarre alien species every day. A fraction of these aliens have yet to be documented by scientists, so adventurers like John and Kuririn continue to find more of these species new to science, transmitting raw data to and from their Alien Indexes (Aliedex). In addition, extra-dimensional beings called the Coosi Sprites consider themselves the "guardians" of Illi, keeping a watchful eye over the flow of life energy, and protecting Illi from resource overexploitation and environmental despoliation from the powers that be. Mostly a world of sub-continent landmasses similar in size to Australia, the most notable landmasses depicted in the pre-2008 comics are Kanabi, Mint Land, Queesty Island, and Cindipin. Illi is managed as a jointly-held condominium between the United Nations on Earth and Queesty Quadrant, and actual ownership belongs to an Earth-based tourism megacorporation called the "Alien Travel Company" (ATC).
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Labeled map of Planet Illi, made in 2009.
Simple illustration of John and Kuririn
Planet Earth
Earth, sometimes called "Gaia" or "Terra", is the capital of the United Nations on Earth and the home planet of Humanity. It had not been featured much in the pre-2008 canon, despite its grander importance to the setting as a whole. It is also the headquarters of the many successful corporations that now operate intragalactically, such as the Alien Travel Company (ATC). Earth today continues to be managed by nation-states, whose interstellar power has largely been superseded by these corporations. The United Nations (UN) had been granted power by the Sentient Peace Initiative (SPI) to play an even stronger peace-keeping role than it was able to in the 21st century, although local national laws still often hold sway. While its jurisdiction isn't as strong on Earth as it is across its many other planets, it is still able to operate to some extent due to cooperation among the nation-states. Many alien species have made their homes here, although humanity continues to remain the most populous. Alien species are frequently subject to xenophobia here, especially xenophobic local laws among its nation-states.
Simple Illustration of Queesty Quadrant in orbit around its parent star, Gladius. This hollow metal planet has two massive rocket boosters to adjust its orbit.
Queesty Quadrant
The Queesty Quadrant, formerly known as "Qinotzaquo", is a hollow planet-like megastructure and the home of the ubiquitous queesty species. Due to the catastrophic evolution of its parent star, Gladius, into a red giant, the queesties embarked on an extraordinary geoengineering project that took millennia to complete, to alter the orbit of their home planet. This geoengineering project resulted in the complete transformation of their cavernous home planet into a hollow metal rocket ship capable of modifying its orbit, but this transformation required the utilization of the entirety of the planet's resources, as well as loans from the Galactic Community they would soon join. Today, Queesty Quadrant, which is now the seat of power of the star nation of the same name, continues to be a galactic hub for technological research and grandiose engineering projects. It is home to many queesty hives, although its high-carbon atmosphere is toxic to most outsiders. At the center of the planet resides the real queesty seat of power--the robotic Queesty King and his parliament.
Early illustration of uncorrupted Dark Illi, showing bioluminescent life
The Dark Universe
In 2008, I added a dimension of existence called the "dark universe". This parallel mirror reality is often contrasted with the "light universe" which had been the setting for all pre-2008 content. Accessible from the light universe by unstable portals and rifts in outer space, the dark universe is a lonely place which houses dark mirror counterparts to every known planet and celestial body in our own universe. However, for every star, there is a black hole or other massive dark object instead which gives off no light, resulting in starless, dark skies across all planets here. With no light to allow for photosynthesis, life instead relies on energy emitted from the cores of planets themselves. In addition, there exists vaguely malicious "dark entities" born from the void between stars and galaxies, which travel aimlessly, bored, lonely, and somewhat insane from eons of drifting with no purpose. When they finally arrive at a planet, with the great power available to them, they do what they like to the planet, often corrupting it and its inhabitants. The only dark planet that had been featured in 2008 was Dark Illi, which is home to malicious spirits called the "caddleroos", who were themselves born from the dark entity of Dark Illi. Today, much of the Dark Universe remains inaccessible to the Light Universe (and vice versa), because portal technology is extremely dangerous and has not been mastered yet.
Species
Simple illustration of a female human
Human
Humanity, with the scientific name Homo sapiens novus (Latin for "New Wise Man"), are a species of Terran primate originating on planet Earth. Considered the most advanced intelligent species on Earth, humanity had come to dominate Earth, transforming its ecology forever through their advanced structures and technology. However, up until the 21st century, their technological progress was limited, and they frequently warred with each other, almost annihilating themselves with their own technology. Humanity had no evidence for and awareness of aliens for much of their history, although some had believed they had close encounters with "UFOs", which were often dismissed as atmospheric phenomena or hallucinations by its naïve scientific community.
In the mid-21st century, a conglomerate of alien species belonging to the "Galactic Community", called the "Sentient Peace Initiative", made first contact with the humans in order to make them members of the Galactic Community, which would also entail sharing their advanced technology with the humans which still have not mastered interstellar space flight. Under agreements with their new alien "friends", the humans had agreed to limit their territorial expansion and environmental exploitation of new planets whose whereabouts were shared with the humans. Hundreds of years later, humanity managed to eclipse most of the alien species anyways, and the agreements were rendered null and void. Humans are now considered to be among the leaders of the Galactic Community.
Various queesties. (Warning: cute)
Queesty
Before 2008, the queesties were the only species of aliens shown to have an advanced space-faring civilization of their own. The queesties are a species of simply-shaped aliens walking on two feet with no other limbs or even facial features other than eyes. Born to a large "hive" family or clan, queesties adopt a headdress showing their hive identity. They originate on the Queesty Quadrant as a subterranean cave species with a lot of technological ingenuity. Today, they rely on robot drones to do the hard work, and have spread through the galaxy as possibly the second most successful species after the humans. The queesties benefited from early interactions with the similarly machine-focused Sharloqqi, who were sent by the Galactic Community at the time to assist the queesties in their ambitions for their planet. The queesties also had a long history of conflict with the alien Mantithytes, who are native to another planet in the Radius-Gladius star system. Today, due to their advanced technology, the queesties are seen as galactic peacekeepers with a large population and legions of disposable droid soldiers. They are widely distributed through the galaxy and contribute to the technological progress of various other star nations in the Galactic Community.
Hairkus
The hairkus are small humanoids native to Planet Illi, and one of many lifeforms spawned from Illi's life energy. Before the arrival of the Humans to planet Illi, they formed small tribes and used simple tools crafted from their long, prehensile hair. Today, they are adopted as mascots or companions by many advanced alien species, including humans. John and Kuririn have a companion hairku, named "Hairy". While they exhibit a degree of human-like intelligence, they are incapable of speaking due to the anatomy of their vocal cords and their mouths, similar to many other "companion species" of aliens native to Illi.
A typical hairku (John & Kuririn's pet named Hairy)
Living form and Ghost form
Wrogs
The wrogs are the last major intelligent alien species created before 2008 and served predominantly as antagonists. The wrogs were one of many Illian species that spawned, and while their species became widely distributed around the immediate neighbors of the Cipher star system, their greatest numbers were spawned on a small planetoid which was later turned into the "Wrog Stronghold" after its destruction. Wrogs were a deeply spiritual species whose tribal societies were headed by wise shamans, who consulted the stars for advice. The wrogs on Illi, however, unwittingly contacted the evil Caddleroos, who gave them advice on how to live forever. After the wars they instigated against the Queesty settlers of planet Illi long ago, the wrogs were brought to the verge of extinction, but their ghostly spirits lingered on, capable of possessing living creatures, thanks to the spiritual bond that the Caddleroos had taught them. They would later go on to wreak havoc across the local star systems from the Wrog Stronghold, until the King Wrog was defeated by John and Kuririn. The wrogs were small humanoids that stood on two clawed feet and had two clawed arms. Their feet supported only their "torso", from which a single long eyestalk was supported. They retain one eye in their supernatural "ghost" form, and pass this feature onto those who they possess.