Kickstarter Day 2 Topic: The Mithal Folk.

08/12/25:

Essentially, they're space elves. Fun facts: since Blue Horizon began life as a fantasy series and not space fantasy, initially they were Straight Up elves. (Specifically, black and brown elves because there were so few in the '00's.)

I created the term "mithal" from the name of the deity Mithra.

The first black elf I created was… KHALEEL. This was long while prior to Alia and his becoming sibling pair, around '09.

Leo is smiling with a blush toward Khaleel, who's particularly blushing next to Leo and Raj, and yet looks more confident than either Leo and Raj, who are smiling softly at him. Leo has falling silver curls tied back, spring green eyes, dark brown skin, and wears a red shirt. Khaleel has falling silver dreads, red eyes, dark brown skin, and wears a dark shirt. Raj has falling straight silver hair around his shoulders and a part of his bangs stylishly cut, dark brown skin, silver eyes, and wears a white suit with green shirt and magenta-ish red tie.

He initially had no love interests, but eventually, wound up one of the characters with more than a few characters interested in him. He has a "cute" motif these days, but as can be seen via his dedicated tarot card…

khaleel has a strange leaf-strewn branch he is implied to be magically pulling toward him with an odd greenery of a plant shaped like an angelic-looking figure with dotted light blue flowers upon its wings and an array of colorful flowers for its hair, mainly violet and fuchsia and orange. he has falling silver braids around him, dark brown skin, red eyes, and a cold stare downward. he holds silver steel-like ancient egyptian-style scales on the right. he wears a dark blue sleeveless shirt and a green lungi that's soaked by the aquamarine waves all around him, spilling down the steps he is sitting upon. the dreamy aqua-cerulean-black waves are starry, and the dark night sky behind him is starry too. the card reads xi (6) above and 'justice' at the bottom with shell and teardrop designs surrounding it. The outer card is a rose pink.

He has a pretty serious side!

Interestingly, his character writing evolved quickly in the past several years. He had a slightly different air prior.

His sister Alia and several other characters also have mithal background! You can learn about a few of them via the free-to-play interactive fiction game I have out called "Blue Horizon: Hibiscus, or the Loved Garden Paths of Raj Rivera."

At one point, I got rid of elves from Blue Horizon. So as one of the first focal elf folk, Khaleel became another human. Elves came back after I changed it into a space fantasy.

Khaleel became mithal again! Alia became one too. She has a LONG history of BG rehaul that I will get into another day. I'm pretty obsessed with her current self.

Just to be /gen, a reason I focused on black + brown elves was because "the dark elf" stereotype of the 2000's irritated me.

There's a lot of ways mithal vs human culture will interplay. As Ranvir discusses in the first chapters, both have occupied planet Imion since it was "only a science hub."

A big reason I got into making black and brown elf characters in the 2000's was… LOTR!!! I wanted black and brown elves, haha.

In terms of Mithra being the basis of the term "mithal"… The humans and mithal of Blue Horizon are purposefully very similar. They rely on this, but have feuds at the same time. For example, they are often grouped together, while "kestral" are wholly separate.

Like I noted prior, kestral folk are mythical. Some can change into foxes with many tails, others into panthers, etc. Mer-folk fall under "kestral."

Historically within the world of Blue Horizon (AKA this is lore within the series), the biggest difference between humans and mithals INITIALLY was that, prior to humans evolving, only mithal could have children with their outer cores (regardless of gender).

As is likely noticeable by now, a major way mithal politics will be relevant is through Khaleel Atif-Akinyemi's subplots. Raj Rivera is one of his main guards! He worries over him a lot.

His twin brother Antonio Chandrani-Rivera is actually supposed to be too, but as noted in the game, there's a problem where he blatantly wants to date Khaleel instead.

Alia Atif-Akinyemi tends to be less troubled by mithal vs human politics due a difference in their studies and certain aspects of how they are associated. (She's overall associated a lot with their mother's history, which is seen a certain way, as well as seen to be trying to live up to her elder sister's image.) She does still deal with some of it due to being "Atif-Akinyemi."

Khaleel focuses on a certain scientific field of study; it's the same as his father's.