A Gene Catlow fanfic that serves as much of the webcomic's manual, making it Word of Dante.
Tropes:
- Language Equals Thought: A race known as the Deltharians have no word for sound. This is because around 98% of the population has a genetic condition that renders them entirely deaf.
- Restricted Expanded Universe: The Basalt Chronicles is not only an example of this trope regarding its source material, Gene Catlow, seeing that the author goes to the universe's creators for permission for virtually everything he adds, but is also that Verse's Manual.
- Trial by Combat: The Empire of Smilodons has a hand-to-hand version of this as a civil, rather than criminal, trial. Only in extreme cases are the fights declared to be to the death, and almost always as a means of getting powerful nobles (who would be otherwise forced into a death match) to stop the feuds between their factions (if you win, your faction wins, but you yourself are exiled).
