Looking at Shenkuu I can see that it was likely based on the actual real life city, Zhangjiajie, or rather the Wulingyuan Scenic Area which is in that area. It's pretty famous when looking at East-Asian landscapes, and I did know of it and look it up further in our research, but knew it wasn't something that I wanted to mainly focus on, the shape wasn't right for what we'd invisaged for the new city. We'd decided early on on the Subeta species that would be native to Shengui Guo, the Chelon being one of them. We decided on a slight Chelon theme, and to go with the feeling of isolation/being cut off I had imagined the city we'd created to be in a large crater on an island - keeping to itself. I drew a lot of inspiration from the cities of Fenghuang and Guilin as well as several other cities/towns and imagery such as tea fields, as well as from Chinese and Japanese prints.

There is similarity because this is the imagery of East-Asia. There has been demand for a land like this for many years. We have several hundred items already on site that will be moved here. We are planning on adding several hundred more based on suggestions that until now we found difficult to fulfill with nowhere particular to go. The potential for this land is amazing and inspiring and we can't wait to continue developing it. As time goes by, and the rest of Subeta enters into the 'new' land again, cultures will mix and change and become ever different, much like the real world.

The name came from several different translations, although we have some multilingual staff members who were able to help out with this. Other users have figured this out already, and even given a few translations that we hadn't even known, which is awesome because they all /work/. We've done other language translations before with Saherimos (I believe that's a translation of 'Sacred Sands' from another language) and Ytiva.

I am very proud of my teams work on this.

- It's more like an AU version of Earth. People that play our site want several conflicting things - to be represented, to have their favourite real life things on site, but for things to be original too. We don't want outright Earth country names, but we'll take inspiration from real life cultures and places and food and clothing and put our own spin on it as much as we can. Some things will be more 'of Subeta' than others. Some things will gradually change more and more into being Subeta integrated. There are people that prefer each thing, and we try to create things for everybody to find something in to enjoy.

We're not really kidding anyone that Luminaire or Morostide or Alegarten or Vesnali are completely original ideas, but over time they have become more 'us' and less Christmas/Morostide/Oktoberfest/Easter. Cultures mix and change and it's a wonderful thing (IMO), and over time our Subeta users will get to see our countries grow and develop. I think that's pretty amazing, and I love that about our site. If it's not to your taste, that's fine - but this is how we've chosen to do it.

- see, it's gradually become so Subeta that I now just call Halloween 'Morostide' c;