Hello everyone! We've been easing back into things in the new year here and are still within the windup period but we wanted to touch base on some plans for 2026.

Era Shifting 2026

We're officially in 2026 and have been discussing another era shift within the group that we hope to get out some time in 2026 details pending. The last era shift was back in 2019, so it has been quite a while!

Here is a bit of flavor text from the last era shift from Dawn Era to Crystal Era years ago:

Elnins have always been odd creatures, prone to spontaneous bouts of evolution across their entire species every so often. They've come to mark these leaps of change as the beginning of a new era for their kind. The most recent era of elnins was named the Dawn Era, after the appearance of the Harbinger of Dawn several centuries past. Dawn was a period of new beginnings, people reaching toward the heavens with their hopes and dreams held up in their palms to catch the rising light. Or so elnin spiritualists like to say.

Over the last year or so, there have been inklings that a new era was swiftly approaching. Elnins describe it like a tickle at the back of your neck, or a song that you can't quite remember floating around in your head trying to take shape. Just a feeling of something vying quietly for your attention. The ever increasing appearances of new traits and mutations popping up randomly was also very telling.

And as the new year turns over, so too do we see that the next era of elnins is truly upon us. The Crystal Era. A time for ideas and goals to solidify, and for the thorns and bristles of confusion and uncertainty to be scoured away until all that's left is a smooth, clear surface overlaying a million refracted shards of possibility shining in crystal clarity. Or so the spiritualists are saying now. Who knows really, those priests are quite fond of their fermented berries.

Nonetheless, the Harbinger of Crystal has indeed set down its blessed toebeans upon the earth of Eyre, and now begins its journey across the realms to proclaim the advent of the Crystal Era to all its elnin brethren.

So what is an era shift exactly?

The changing of eras generally marks a huge 'update' to elnins that happens every so often. Usually these updates come in the form of changes to certain traits/mutations or shifts in lore.

Lorewise, elnin physiology can be a bit capricious. In fact, the entire race is prone to evolve all at once every couple centuries. Occasionally, this happens in response to some big change on the horizon, such as when elnins obtained the Knight ability to transform their pomus into weapons to be more effective against a rising tide of monsters creeping out of Vahl D'sari, but just as often it happens with no discernible reason. Historically, elnins have had quite a few different eras over the lifespan of Eyre.  This upcoming era shift will just be the next era in the chain!

The two most recent eras were the Dawn Era (ending around the end of 2018) and the Crystal Era (2019-2025 roughly dipping into 2026 a bit). The next era will be revealed in time.

What does this mean for the group?

Not much immediately! We mostly wanted to give a small update that Mana and the team are working through some thoughts on various aspects of the group. Until things are a little more solidified, things in the group will continue as usual and we'll be continuing with the current trait guidelines until the shift happens. This is the plan barring a few things we would like to soft release in good faith that group members will work with us a bit as we try to relax a few aspects of the group a little sooner.

A Few Soft Release Updates

Currently there are exactly 2 updates we were planning for the next era shift but we're going to try to release these adjustments a touch early.

The soft release updates are in the following areas:

1. Kittom tails will be getting a slight allowance to be a bit bigger. Kittom tails can now be up to the same size as a kittom's body or smaller. There may be some wiggle room for specific tail styles that are likely to need more detail to their silhouettes (like shoal, grove, overwild styles) but we shouldn't be seeing anything larger than a body-length and a half even on more elaborate styles.
   • Historically, most kittom tails we've asked be roughly a half a body length or shorter, barring a few styles (shoal, grove, etc.) where capturing silhouette details on tails that small could be challenging and we looked mostly for the tail base (non-fluff portions) to be closer to that half-body size mark where fluff might push things a little larger than half a body size but not much.
   • A lot of the struggle in this space has been with kittoms appearing more like adult elnin proportion-wise. Kittom tails historically have been kept very small to avoid the impression kittoms have any MP in that space to give them more length than they should have as they haven't become adult elnin yet.
   • This is a kittom only change. So 0MP adult elnin tails must still be roughly half of the adult body length. Think of it kind of like how real life feline kittens sometimes have terribly large ears and by the time they're adults they've usually "grown into them" and their ears look more proportionate.
2. Hair, ear fluff, fluff mutations, and tail style fur texture allowances are being opened up a little more to allow some swirls to occur in these spaces even when a welkin tail is not present.
   • Historically swirls appearing on the body has been aligned with the welkin tail trait as sort of a defining feature. People might have noticed in the early years of elnin roughly 2015-2019 before and in the months around the era shift things were a bit more relaxed on this front.
   • Over the years, the team had grown concerned that by allowing swirls (a more welkin-tail style feature) on other tails there would be conflicts with what people interpreted as "hybrid" (now called Overwild Furred) tail styles. There has also been a worry that other tail styles (like 1MP warren) might start to emulate higher MP tails like Welkin tails if surrounding fluff or tail fluff included swirls. To avoid stepping on toes, this space has grown increasingly strict out of concern folks who have sunk time into these more costly tail styles would be upset with the team for not drawing clearer boundaries.
   • Swirls are now allowed in fluff mutation areas, hair, ear fluff. We are also allowing swirls in tail fur as well, as long as the original tail style silhouettes are clear and being adhered to. This does mean we should not see any warren tails reading as cloudy Welkin tails. We also should not see tail silhouettes becoming obscured in obtuse ways. (For example, lagoon tails should not become unidentifiable because the longer strands swirl upward beyond recognition. This is why we're saying "some" swirls. Keep in mind too that fur/fluff needs length to be able to swirl, so it should be very very subdued in any sort of thick/short fur length tail styles if anyone is wanting to throw swirls into those spaces. If we see anything too wild and unrecognizable, we will ask for adjustments still, but swirls will no longer be outright disallowed from appearing in masterlist art without a welkin tail present.
   • In the future, we are exploring a way to make welkin tails stand out a bit more with their primary swirl feature being adopted as more of a hair/fluff texture option to a point. This is not a guarantee, but if any additions to the welkin tail style are made to help it stand out more, those additional features will be optional and not requiring an art change. Any potential changes to Welkin tails will likely turn up alongside the era shift if we find something that makes sense as a part of that tail style.

For now these are the only two things we're soft launching a bit early. More changes will come as a part of the era shift itself.