Quissians have darkvision out to 60 feet, which is worth 2 RP, and a trait equivalent to Camouflage (Desert), which is another 1 RP. Their Skill Bonus to Climb costs them 2 RP, and +2 natural armor is their most expensive racial trait with 3 RP. It’s not listed in their stat block in Mythic Races, but in the text it describes that the quissians don’t need to drink water to survive. It’s a very small ability, but I’ll call it worth 1 RP. Languages can be a bit difficult for me, as the existence of a near-universal Common language is utterly risible. That being said, it is founded upon real things. Latin was a scholarly language in medieval Europe, in which all the revered ancient texts, as well as anything involving the hegemonic Catholic Church, whereas Farsi’s importance as a poetic language, the language of Rumi and Hafiz and many others, earned it the right to function beside Qu’ranic Arabic (whose importance should be obvious, in light of the inerrancy required of reproductions of Islam’s holy text) allowed them to function the same way. In short, these were languages that the educated and privileged classes could reasonably expect to be known by anyone they met in their travels or someone near to hand, if not. Even the common folk picked up phrases here and there in these languages from hearing them repeated or out of sheer pragmatic necessity when dealing the courts or the church.
Of course, all three languages being born of empires certainly didn’t hurt.
Scarhasi religion isn’t textual the way Islam is, but it does have two empires that are important to the region. The Hemeya Sea was not always a sea, but once was a mountainous empire of minotaurs that was punished by its gods for purging scientific inquiry from its culture. A giant ball of flame and stone fell form the sky, and the empire’s peaks became islands. It was in the wake of this catastrophe that the Haćo religion was first created. The language of the minotaurs (Istahaanu) functions much like Quranic Arabic (and scholarly Latin, as many minotaurs never fully relinquished their scientific curiosity, even in the post-apocalyptic archipelago they found themselves in). On the other hand, the dragon-kings who rule the city-states of the Dragon Coast have ruled those city-states ~ and have been worshiped by their citizens ~ since well before the minotaurs even founded their empire! This immortality-backed continuity of government and economic hegemony have spawned the creation of a pidgin of the languages of these seven city-states that serves as the de facto diplomatic language of Scarhas. It’s a Scarhasi Esperanto of sorts.
Quissians, obviously, have their own language “of hisses and pops that sounds like the primal communication of serpents”. I’ll call it . . . Quissad. But do they know either or both of Scarhas’s international languages? They’re given Common in the text, but also described as isolationist, nigh unto xenophobia, engaging only in brief, perfunctory interactions filled sparingly with quick and honest speech unadorned by casual conversation. With that in mind, as well as the very short list of three language options given in the text, I’m going to give them the Xenophobic trait (0 RP)
That means that the quissian’s total RP cost is 8 RP, which makes them equivalent to the half-orc, duergar, orc, vanara, and lizardfolk. I call it good! Here, then, is my conversion of the quissian race, in proper formatting (although, conversion might be a weird word for something this easy):
Standard Racial Traits
Ability Score Racial Traits: Quissians are a naturally tough race, but their stern, withdrawn tendencies make them less sociable than other races. +2 Constitution, -2 Charisma.
Size: Quissians are Medium creatures and thus receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Type: Quissians are humanoids with the quissian subtype.
Base Speed: Quissians have a base speed of 30 feet.
Languages: Quissians begin play speaking Quissad. Quissians with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Istahaanu, Draconic Pidgin, Pearl Words.
Defense Racial Traits
Natural Armor: Their thick scales and tough skin give quissians a +2 natural armor bonus to their Armor Class.
Feat and Skill Racial Traits
Camouflage: Quissians gain a +4 racial bonus on Stealth checks while within the desert. With their earth-colored scales, quissians easily blend into their native environment.
Skill Bonus (Climb): Quissians gain a +2 racial bonus on Climb checks. The quissians’ clawed hands and feet make them excellent climbers.
Senses Racial Traits
Darkvision: Quissians can see perfectly in the dark up to 60 feet.
Other Racial Traits
Dry: Quissians have no need of any kind of regular hydration. A quissian can drink if they choose but does not need to for survival.
Friday, November 30, 2018
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Students of Great Men (Traveller Tuesday #23)
OK, so the Drag Moon of Amon Assemon already has a large population of people unaffiliated with any one religion in particular, a strong presence of Associationist Spiritualists, and almost equal numbers of Neo-Wiccan gender-duotheists and speciesist scientific historians. What will come next?
We roll a 6 on 3d6, again! Well, now, avatar-based theology seems to be really popular amongst these moon-qweens. Maybe this religion is related to the Tickseed Feast in some way, or maybe this one will be more Hindu. By the way, do any of my readers know of any good Hindu representation in science fiction? I feel like it’s been woefully passed up for the “. . . IN SPAAAAACE” treatment, but maybe I’m just reading the wrong books.
Will the follow-up 2d6-1 roll continue and cement the similarity? That’s a resounding NO, to the tune of an 11. In fact, this newest religion seems to have more in common with the Guild of the Rose-Brothers than to anything else, as believers seek to expand the frontiers of knowledge through inquiry and speculation. If it’s in that fruitful line, then perhaps it’s more Neo-Platonic than Hindu, seeking to understand the One by understanding the Forms, which one can only understand by examining the individual imperfect objects of the world. Or it could be both, with a handful of devis and devas (or just the Trimurti) being a stage between the Forms and the One ~ I have run across Neo-Platonic ideas of the One yielding the Two which then begets the Three, et cetera, before we get into the Forms.
Another 11 comes up on the Devotion roll ~ much more expectedly, this time, I should add, as it’s a 2d6+4 roll ~ to give us a semiannual devotion. Twice a year, this religion meets to worship and advance the boundaries of knowledge. We continue the 2d6+4 rolls with one to determine the Organization Structure of the faith, getting a 7. That means that it has a loose hierarchy with most decisions made on the planetary level. That, in turn, means the Liturgical Formality is just a 2d6 roll. An 8 means that rituals are combined with an open teaching policy. I’m feeling, again, that religious gatherings resemble an academic conference more than a tent revival.
Speaking of, how much Fervor do its Missionaries have? 2D6-2 tells us that only an ordinary level of proselytization is present and that any sophont species is welcome with an 8. Let’s roll the dWikipedia to name this religion now, and maybe we can flesh out some more of its ways before we determine how many people practice it. How about the Students of Great Men? I addressed issues of religious racism down on Ishee (well, speciesism, but it’s the classic space-opera substitute) and it’s shown up here on Amon Assemon, so why not mix in some explorations of scientific/spiritual sexism up here? Also, I have brushed up against way too much gay-male sexism in my life (being coercively assigned as male, they always seem to think they can talk to me as if I’m “one of the boys”) and this small Assemonite religion could be a good way to comment on that.
OK, so let’s imagine a new take on Rose Brother or even Azeyrenawti teachings. No one is trying to summon Hermachis of the Horizon or remember the world-shaking inventions that have done so in the past. This faith believes in a handful of Genii (plural of genius, mind you) who project images of themselves by means of the ancestors (for an Associationist element) into “images”, great men who swell the bounds of science and achieve great feats of engineering. Much of the Students’ study is dedicated to identifying which of the handful of Genii are manifesting any given image ~ because the ancestors control the cosmological technology to allow the projection, they can manipulate and shape the image according to their tastes, and often dress up the more disreputable Genii in upstanding images that portray the values of their society to the utmost.
Imagine the rows that develop between the Azeyrenawti and the Students, over species and sex, over the number of divine beings and the relevance of Spiritualism, over the steady progress of projection and the respectful honor due the grand inventions of the past!
A 4 on 3d6-8 allots the Students of Great Men tens of thousands of followers. Random.org can narrow that amount down to 65,802 Students of Great Men. With numbers like that, I say we finish off Amon Assemon’s population with 142 Students, or 1.6% of the planet.
Religious landscape of Amon Assemon:
5227 sophonts (59%) atheist/agnostic/non-religious
2747 sophonts (31%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners
390 sophonts (4.4%) the Tickseed Feast (Tickseeds, Feasters, Tickers, Seedies)
354 humans (4%) Azeyrenawt
142 sophonts (1.6%) Students of Great Men (Students)
We roll a 6 on 3d6, again! Well, now, avatar-based theology seems to be really popular amongst these moon-qweens. Maybe this religion is related to the Tickseed Feast in some way, or maybe this one will be more Hindu. By the way, do any of my readers know of any good Hindu representation in science fiction? I feel like it’s been woefully passed up for the “. . . IN SPAAAAACE” treatment, but maybe I’m just reading the wrong books.
Will the follow-up 2d6-1 roll continue and cement the similarity? That’s a resounding NO, to the tune of an 11. In fact, this newest religion seems to have more in common with the Guild of the Rose-Brothers than to anything else, as believers seek to expand the frontiers of knowledge through inquiry and speculation. If it’s in that fruitful line, then perhaps it’s more Neo-Platonic than Hindu, seeking to understand the One by understanding the Forms, which one can only understand by examining the individual imperfect objects of the world. Or it could be both, with a handful of devis and devas (or just the Trimurti) being a stage between the Forms and the One ~ I have run across Neo-Platonic ideas of the One yielding the Two which then begets the Three, et cetera, before we get into the Forms.
Another 11 comes up on the Devotion roll ~ much more expectedly, this time, I should add, as it’s a 2d6+4 roll ~ to give us a semiannual devotion. Twice a year, this religion meets to worship and advance the boundaries of knowledge. We continue the 2d6+4 rolls with one to determine the Organization Structure of the faith, getting a 7. That means that it has a loose hierarchy with most decisions made on the planetary level. That, in turn, means the Liturgical Formality is just a 2d6 roll. An 8 means that rituals are combined with an open teaching policy. I’m feeling, again, that religious gatherings resemble an academic conference more than a tent revival.
Speaking of, how much Fervor do its Missionaries have? 2D6-2 tells us that only an ordinary level of proselytization is present and that any sophont species is welcome with an 8. Let’s roll the dWikipedia to name this religion now, and maybe we can flesh out some more of its ways before we determine how many people practice it. How about the Students of Great Men? I addressed issues of religious racism down on Ishee (well, speciesism, but it’s the classic space-opera substitute) and it’s shown up here on Amon Assemon, so why not mix in some explorations of scientific/spiritual sexism up here? Also, I have brushed up against way too much gay-male sexism in my life (being coercively assigned as male, they always seem to think they can talk to me as if I’m “one of the boys”) and this small Assemonite religion could be a good way to comment on that.
OK, so let’s imagine a new take on Rose Brother or even Azeyrenawti teachings. No one is trying to summon Hermachis of the Horizon or remember the world-shaking inventions that have done so in the past. This faith believes in a handful of Genii (plural of genius, mind you) who project images of themselves by means of the ancestors (for an Associationist element) into “images”, great men who swell the bounds of science and achieve great feats of engineering. Much of the Students’ study is dedicated to identifying which of the handful of Genii are manifesting any given image ~ because the ancestors control the cosmological technology to allow the projection, they can manipulate and shape the image according to their tastes, and often dress up the more disreputable Genii in upstanding images that portray the values of their society to the utmost.
Imagine the rows that develop between the Azeyrenawti and the Students, over species and sex, over the number of divine beings and the relevance of Spiritualism, over the steady progress of projection and the respectful honor due the grand inventions of the past!
A 4 on 3d6-8 allots the Students of Great Men tens of thousands of followers. Random.org can narrow that amount down to 65,802 Students of Great Men. With numbers like that, I say we finish off Amon Assemon’s population with 142 Students, or 1.6% of the planet.
Religious landscape of Amon Assemon:
5227 sophonts (59%) atheist/agnostic/non-religious
2747 sophonts (31%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners
390 sophonts (4.4%) the Tickseed Feast (Tickseeds, Feasters, Tickers, Seedies)
354 humans (4%) Azeyrenawt
142 sophonts (1.6%) Students of Great Men (Students)
Sunday, November 25, 2018
To honor each other is to honor the gods (Design Domingo #23)
Dwarfin law and conflict resolution almost entirely rests on the duel, serving as a decision-making device, a punishment, a negotiative strategy, and the foundation of friendship, as well as recreation. They have developed a broad panoply of dueling styles with any number of weapons and combinations thereof. Other races, especially orcs (who also have a strong dueling culture) have a hard time understanding the humorous flippancy with which dwarfs usually treat duels. More confusing is how seriously the fey beings take the results of such a flippant act.
Relations: As has already been referenced quite a few times, dwarfs tend to live closely connected to gnomish settlements. They have mixed feelings about this: they require the intercession of the gnomes if they’re going to have much trade or interaction with the races whom the sun doesn’t hate, but they find the gnomes’ free-wheeling way of life and lack of concern for mundane things like consistency or scheduling mind-bending. Dwarfs remain completely baffled by how the gnomes get anything done or apply any sort of meaning to lives lived primarily for fun and lack of worry.
Dwarfs have fought many wars with the elfs of Dalmatia, dating all the way back to the rule of the Archmagi, a conflict over the rich farmlands of what is now Penguern that extended both races’ oppression by the Archmagi for a few centuries longer than it needed. It is worth noting that neither race operated as a monolith in these wars ~ they were a complicated knot of dwarfin tribes allying with elfin tribes against other elfs, and vice versa. They now exist as sort of frenemies writ big, evaluating each interaction to discover whether they squabble or whether they trust each other implicitly, and treating their mottled history with humor and camaraderie more than anything else. They’ve both been subjects of the Galatian king for the last two centuries, but they allied together a century before that to harry and raid Galatian villages. They hoped to prevent Galatian hegemony, and failed.
Accordingly, dwarfs tend to view the humans who dominate the southern lands with some suspicion. In truth, it is only King d’Holbach’s history of earning their trust and dedicated effort to bring them into the rest of the empire that prevented them from merely burrowing deeper into the mountains until this short-lived race’s time passed. That first century was still marked by repeated duels between dwarfin representatives and various imperial and provincial agents. If even a handful fewer of those duels had been won by the humans, they might have chosen total war instead of wary participation anyway.
Both halflings and orcs tend to live a bit far from the dwarfin homeland of Worth for them to come into common contact with these Fair Folk. That distance prevents them from having strong tendencies in their perceptions and relations with these races, although halflings do tend to display a work ethic that dwarfs find more comprehensible than the worldviews of many other races. Orcish discipline and honor can easily fall into an uncanny valley for dwarfs ~ they’re not toil, but they can look like it. Dwarfin culture as a whole, as I’ve said, hasn’t yet developed a unified reaction to this uncanny valley.
Alignments and Religion: The primary recipient of dwarfin worship is the blacksmith goddess of war and duels, the Orippan Mosaifis. In the epic poem known as the Locorrad, the merchant-god Locorrus and some of his orcs stole Mosaifis's blond hair, thinking to both demoralize a powerful warrior on the side of Galatia and to use it as a focus for evil magic. They succeeded at the first, for Mosaifis did not accompany the company questing to regain her hair and spent much of her time thereafter alone in her realm on Orippus. Her dwarfs could not bear this, to see their goddess so depressed, and so spent weeks, even months, forging her a wig of gold. They even inlaid it with enough protective magic to deflect any magic Locorrus might attempt upon her. The gods who set out to find her hair never found it, but it is said that the humans and dwarfs who accompanied them have continued the search to this day, as a secret society. Mosaifis is known to own the jewel-dropping ring, Draupnus, which is occasionally worshiped by gnomes.
Other dwarfin deities include
Superstitions passed along in the warrens of the syndics largely center around keeping dwarfs safe from Soleh, whose anger is said to persist until this day. He’s rather the bogeyman, if you’re a dwarf. Worthese priests, including many dwarfs, in the Orthodox Orippan Church have formed a strong faction within the church, strong enough and different enough that some have begun to challenge their succession within the church, saying that they may be in violation of orthodoxy. This “Worthese Interpretation” is what I called the “Penguernite Interpretation” a while back, and it exhorts its followers to be Energetic and Generous rather than Forgiving and Merciful.
Relations: As has already been referenced quite a few times, dwarfs tend to live closely connected to gnomish settlements. They have mixed feelings about this: they require the intercession of the gnomes if they’re going to have much trade or interaction with the races whom the sun doesn’t hate, but they find the gnomes’ free-wheeling way of life and lack of concern for mundane things like consistency or scheduling mind-bending. Dwarfs remain completely baffled by how the gnomes get anything done or apply any sort of meaning to lives lived primarily for fun and lack of worry.
Dwarfs have fought many wars with the elfs of Dalmatia, dating all the way back to the rule of the Archmagi, a conflict over the rich farmlands of what is now Penguern that extended both races’ oppression by the Archmagi for a few centuries longer than it needed. It is worth noting that neither race operated as a monolith in these wars ~ they were a complicated knot of dwarfin tribes allying with elfin tribes against other elfs, and vice versa. They now exist as sort of frenemies writ big, evaluating each interaction to discover whether they squabble or whether they trust each other implicitly, and treating their mottled history with humor and camaraderie more than anything else. They’ve both been subjects of the Galatian king for the last two centuries, but they allied together a century before that to harry and raid Galatian villages. They hoped to prevent Galatian hegemony, and failed.
Accordingly, dwarfs tend to view the humans who dominate the southern lands with some suspicion. In truth, it is only King d’Holbach’s history of earning their trust and dedicated effort to bring them into the rest of the empire that prevented them from merely burrowing deeper into the mountains until this short-lived race’s time passed. That first century was still marked by repeated duels between dwarfin representatives and various imperial and provincial agents. If even a handful fewer of those duels had been won by the humans, they might have chosen total war instead of wary participation anyway.
Both halflings and orcs tend to live a bit far from the dwarfin homeland of Worth for them to come into common contact with these Fair Folk. That distance prevents them from having strong tendencies in their perceptions and relations with these races, although halflings do tend to display a work ethic that dwarfs find more comprehensible than the worldviews of many other races. Orcish discipline and honor can easily fall into an uncanny valley for dwarfs ~ they’re not toil, but they can look like it. Dwarfin culture as a whole, as I’ve said, hasn’t yet developed a unified reaction to this uncanny valley.
Alignments and Religion: The primary recipient of dwarfin worship is the blacksmith goddess of war and duels, the Orippan Mosaifis. In the epic poem known as the Locorrad, the merchant-god Locorrus and some of his orcs stole Mosaifis's blond hair, thinking to both demoralize a powerful warrior on the side of Galatia and to use it as a focus for evil magic. They succeeded at the first, for Mosaifis did not accompany the company questing to regain her hair and spent much of her time thereafter alone in her realm on Orippus. Her dwarfs could not bear this, to see their goddess so depressed, and so spent weeks, even months, forging her a wig of gold. They even inlaid it with enough protective magic to deflect any magic Locorrus might attempt upon her. The gods who set out to find her hair never found it, but it is said that the humans and dwarfs who accompanied them have continued the search to this day, as a secret society. Mosaifis is known to own the jewel-dropping ring, Draupnus, which is occasionally worshiped by gnomes.
Other dwarfin deities include
- Phaitos, the ethereal god of smithing, crafts, travel, and secrets, who has been getting more and more popular since the subterranean roads were completed and more and more dwarfs began living across the empire, all mixed in with the other races.
- Nafdes, goddix of death, grief, earth, the underworld, and wealth, who rules the mines that make dwarfs rich, and the feeling a dwarf gets when there is no longer a need to labor
- Shecire, goddix of the harvest, the underworld, abundance, the moon, and the undead, who is understood to be mysterious and arcane and to wield powers both stange and likely dangerous, and who is thanked every time the vegetables and fruits and grains which are her children are brought into the tunneled halls.
- Hrumdas, god of orcs, war, territory, watchfulness, sight, hearing, outcasts, barbarians, rebellion, whose image stands at every mountain door and every Worthese border, watching for potential danger.
- Scanerdus, god of earth, mountains, death, darkness, murder, the underworld, who organizes the Syndic of Ghosts far below the shallow realms of the dwarfs in the Deepest Halls.
Superstitions passed along in the warrens of the syndics largely center around keeping dwarfs safe from Soleh, whose anger is said to persist until this day. He’s rather the bogeyman, if you’re a dwarf. Worthese priests, including many dwarfs, in the Orthodox Orippan Church have formed a strong faction within the church, strong enough and different enough that some have begun to challenge their succession within the church, saying that they may be in violation of orthodoxy. This “Worthese Interpretation” is what I called the “Penguernite Interpretation” a while back, and it exhorts its followers to be Energetic and Generous rather than Forgiving and Merciful.
Friday, November 23, 2018
Race and the new character (Fantasy Friday #23)
But the community around them would not let them go down like that. The Haćo master who was dedicated to their training (the Obi-Wan to their Anakin) interrupted their self-punishment, reminded them of their goodness, helped them see that they weren’t bound to serve Fate just because they had gone down a dangerous path. In short, their mentor showed them compassion, and revealed their own mistakes and errors and the pain they carried from them. The mind, the mentor taught, can be tricky. It can see Destiny where it is looking at Fate; it can confuse the path so one doesn’t know whence one is heading. The honor and nobility of spirit shared by the two Haćo (symbolized by a gold dragon in Intelligence) gives the two tokens on Intelligence to Wisdom. It’s also what sent the character on the path to becoming a refo (the Haćo equivalent of a qadi, a judge of positive law), one who trusts their heart and their experience of temptation more than the intricacies of the Haćo code, the endless interpretations thereof, and the impenetrable interacting hierarchies of precedents.
Their base ability scores, after gifting the extra token from Wisdom to Constitution, come out to:
Strength 14
Dexterity 13
Constitution 14
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 15
Charisma 14
Thanks to a short-lived attempt at playing with a homeless friend of mine, I’ve previously established that Scarhas’s racial context derives from Fantasy Flight Games’s ancient Mythic Races book, a part of their Legends & Lairs line dating back to the OGL boom and the early days of the company. She wanted to play a rhonian, one of the Labyrinth-muppet-looking bardic swampbirds from the book. I quickly decided that the rhonians came from the Sumer equivalent in Scarhas (since Sumer was all marshland). In the Hemeya Sea, however, fantasy reskins of Star Wars and Star Trek races descended from minotaurs warped by the cataclysm that created the sea dominate the racial context.
I’m hoping to capture some of the uniqueness of my game with these characters, so I’m going to put off looking at the Hemeyan races for this Haćo and look through the mainland races of the FFG book. The anaema, a species of demi-substantial humans, tickle my brain momentarily, but their lack of solidity makes some of the physical aspects of the character’s background ~ the drive to maximize their body’s capabilities, the idea of bullying people towards goodness ~ harder to swallow than I would like. Artaathi are the inevitable catfolk, but a comment about their sociopsychology and its union of dualities pulls at me for a moment until I realize that playing up that kind of theme is closer to Boanerges than I would like. I want these characters to all be different, after all.
Now, the blickish is super tempting. Essentially halfling aasimar who have the innate power to blink, in my setting they were born of the same celestial/mortal pairing that gave birth to the central figure in Natsiyaasim’s religion (and heritage). Making this character a blickish, thus, would give them an immediate, if minor, link to Forsetilafom. Plus, despite their small stature, they have a Strength bonus, so the whole bullying, weightlifting thing works . . . . I consider the curst for half a second, but the inheritors of a divine punishment for decadence don’t seem quite right for this character. Similarly, the planes-wandering eyeless illonis tempt but fail to quite connect to the character’s themes. The luminous, on the other hand, stand next to the blickish in the contest for this character ~ they were blessed with bodies of light and a connection to the positive energy plane after selflessly sacrificing most of their race to defeat an army of undead.
The jaguar shapeshifters known as mhuinntirs fail to quite capture the characters’ themes, despite lending themselves to the simmering anger that the character has mostly come to terms with. Something about the inherently magical pevishan almost snags on the character concept. The reptilian desertfolk known as the quissians date back to the same war that created the luminous ~ they were a mad wizard’s attempt to preserve his community from the ravages war brings to anyone nearby, whether involved or not. Something about them, perhaps their brutal nobility, puts them in the prime candidate along with the blickish and the luminous. The sendasti are another race of desert-dwellers, whose fasting abilities resonate with the character’s successful times of introspection and retreat and facing their own demons. It’s not quite enough for me to make the character a sendasti, though. Meanwhile, the sktak are another reptilian race, and their discipline and austerity actually puts them in the final running, too.
The final listing of good possibilities for this character includes the blickish, the luminous, the quissians, and the sktak. The tragedy inherent to the quissians pulls me in that direction ~ I think I’m deciding that, rather than being a warrior race created to defend a kingdom, they are the entire kingdom transformed into a sturdier race. And the attempt to save them from the horrors of a war they were never actually in was what doomed them as a civilization. It’s just close enough to the character’s personal journey to have resonance with it while remaining distinct enough that it provides depth tho the narrative, not just fractal repetition.
The next step is to convert the race from Mythic Races to Pathfinder, especially with its RP system. As written, quissians are humanoids (0 RP) of Medium size (0 RP) who get normal speed (0 RP) and +2 Constitution and -2 Charisma. I’m gonna call that combination of modifiers roughly equivalent to the Weakness quality (-1 RP). Sure, it’s not tanking Charisma with a -4, but it’s also not giving them a benefit to anything other than Constitution. It’s obviously weaker than Standard (0 RP), which would require a +2 to Intelligence or Wisdom as well, but not nearly as powerful as a Mixed Weakness (-2 RP), which would involve another +2 and a -4 moreover. So far, quissians have -1 RP. Next week, we’ll start to examine their racial traits.
Their base ability scores, after gifting the extra token from Wisdom to Constitution, come out to:
Strength 14
Dexterity 13
Constitution 14
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 15
Charisma 14
Thanks to a short-lived attempt at playing with a homeless friend of mine, I’ve previously established that Scarhas’s racial context derives from Fantasy Flight Games’s ancient Mythic Races book, a part of their Legends & Lairs line dating back to the OGL boom and the early days of the company. She wanted to play a rhonian, one of the Labyrinth-muppet-looking bardic swampbirds from the book. I quickly decided that the rhonians came from the Sumer equivalent in Scarhas (since Sumer was all marshland). In the Hemeya Sea, however, fantasy reskins of Star Wars and Star Trek races descended from minotaurs warped by the cataclysm that created the sea dominate the racial context.
I’m hoping to capture some of the uniqueness of my game with these characters, so I’m going to put off looking at the Hemeyan races for this Haćo and look through the mainland races of the FFG book. The anaema, a species of demi-substantial humans, tickle my brain momentarily, but their lack of solidity makes some of the physical aspects of the character’s background ~ the drive to maximize their body’s capabilities, the idea of bullying people towards goodness ~ harder to swallow than I would like. Artaathi are the inevitable catfolk, but a comment about their sociopsychology and its union of dualities pulls at me for a moment until I realize that playing up that kind of theme is closer to Boanerges than I would like. I want these characters to all be different, after all.
Now, the blickish is super tempting. Essentially halfling aasimar who have the innate power to blink, in my setting they were born of the same celestial/mortal pairing that gave birth to the central figure in Natsiyaasim’s religion (and heritage). Making this character a blickish, thus, would give them an immediate, if minor, link to Forsetilafom. Plus, despite their small stature, they have a Strength bonus, so the whole bullying, weightlifting thing works . . . . I consider the curst for half a second, but the inheritors of a divine punishment for decadence don’t seem quite right for this character. Similarly, the planes-wandering eyeless illonis tempt but fail to quite connect to the character’s themes. The luminous, on the other hand, stand next to the blickish in the contest for this character ~ they were blessed with bodies of light and a connection to the positive energy plane after selflessly sacrificing most of their race to defeat an army of undead.
The jaguar shapeshifters known as mhuinntirs fail to quite capture the characters’ themes, despite lending themselves to the simmering anger that the character has mostly come to terms with. Something about the inherently magical pevishan almost snags on the character concept. The reptilian desertfolk known as the quissians date back to the same war that created the luminous ~ they were a mad wizard’s attempt to preserve his community from the ravages war brings to anyone nearby, whether involved or not. Something about them, perhaps their brutal nobility, puts them in the prime candidate along with the blickish and the luminous. The sendasti are another race of desert-dwellers, whose fasting abilities resonate with the character’s successful times of introspection and retreat and facing their own demons. It’s not quite enough for me to make the character a sendasti, though. Meanwhile, the sktak are another reptilian race, and their discipline and austerity actually puts them in the final running, too.
The final listing of good possibilities for this character includes the blickish, the luminous, the quissians, and the sktak. The tragedy inherent to the quissians pulls me in that direction ~ I think I’m deciding that, rather than being a warrior race created to defend a kingdom, they are the entire kingdom transformed into a sturdier race. And the attempt to save them from the horrors of a war they were never actually in was what doomed them as a civilization. It’s just close enough to the character’s personal journey to have resonance with it while remaining distinct enough that it provides depth tho the narrative, not just fractal repetition.
The next step is to convert the race from Mythic Races to Pathfinder, especially with its RP system. As written, quissians are humanoids (0 RP) of Medium size (0 RP) who get normal speed (0 RP) and +2 Constitution and -2 Charisma. I’m gonna call that combination of modifiers roughly equivalent to the Weakness quality (-1 RP). Sure, it’s not tanking Charisma with a -4, but it’s also not giving them a benefit to anything other than Constitution. It’s obviously weaker than Standard (0 RP), which would require a +2 to Intelligence or Wisdom as well, but not nearly as powerful as a Mixed Weakness (-2 RP), which would involve another +2 and a -4 moreover. So far, quissians have -1 RP. Next week, we’ll start to examine their racial traits.
Todahlael, Habbalah of Ignorance*, Demon of Gratitude
Well, it's a day late and a dollar short, but I created a character for In Nomine encapsulating some of my feels/observations from yesterday (the so-called "Thanksgiving"). I'm actually quite fond of her.
She's a servitor of Ascetus, the balseraph demon prince of Ignorance and one of many non-canon Superiors in my version of In Nomine (which I call Reality Beulah, for reasons I'll explain later). I'ven't written him up yet, but he's a blend of Ascetus and Astaroth from the In Nomine Collection's Rogue Gallery. All relevant game information has been provided.
*****************
Todahlael, like many celestials, is a very old being. She was created in Ketriel's service, and diligently, dispassionately served the aeon archangel of Grace for millions of years before the Fall. And it wasn't the Fall that sent her to Hell, either, as she fought those who are now her friends and allies after Metatron's murder. Afterwards, secure in the knowledge that the newly-minted demons were safely locked away forever, she continued just as she had before the Rebellion, bringing joyful surprises and easing luck to the humans who had been the excuse for that shocking crime. And then the human Lilith freed the demons.
Though her faith that everything would turn out for the best by the grace of God had finally been shaken, Todahlael settled into the new role with which Ketriel, the first of the Archangels known as the Four Soteroi, charged its angels with an odd mix of comfort and desperation. Salvation, after all, comes from many sources ~ famously, from grace, faith, and acts. Todahlael and her coworkers coordinated well with Yves's angels, arranging for the sort of inexplicable gifts and luck that came at just the right time to rescue a human soul from becoming the plaything of the liberated demons. But the entire time, she hid in her Heart a secret wish that someone would do the same for her, would restore her faith in the God which created her and rescue her from the Fate she feared she knew was awaiting her.
Ketriel had been clear in its charge ~ grace is not grace if it can be caused. In other words, asking for grace destroys the possibility of grace. Todahlael was nothing if not dutiful, and took the aeon's teaching to heart. She never asked for the help she needed so greatly, and so she never received it. Her Outcasting and Fall were slow, a creeping teeter that lasted from Lilith's unlocking the gates to Hell in 15,000 p.e.v. (prior era vulgaris, before the common era) all the way to her Heart shattering during the first part of the 4th century e.v., during Constantine the Great's reign as Byzantine Emperor.
Rejecting the gentleness of her past, Todahlael took up with Malphas, wielding unexpected luck as a weapon against relationships and unity. Nothing promotes a lonely individuality like jealousy over a friend's seemingly unbalanced good fortune. This work kept her busy for a millennium and a half, slowly working her way all over the globe, taking inconspicuous roles amongst the irredeemable throngs of the human herd. Often, she chose to appear as a supporter of some alliance or solidarity, while secretly working to undermine it, to set it ablaze with the disastrous inferno of envy.
Like most of her friends in the service of Factions, the American Civil War was yet another orgy of a party in an increasingly dense social calendar. Such joy Todahlael found as brother fought against brother, bloodily severing ties for often insignificant reasons. General Lee, for example, who believed in the North's cause but fought for the South simply because it was his home. It was one of Todahlael's friends who outmaneuvered the malakim surrounding the general, turning Lee's honor against the unifying actions Heaven wanted to see from him.
As so often happens, this constant din of fun and games lent itself to a moment of melancholy. For Todahlael, this came when she read Lincoln's declaration of Thanksgiving (reproduced after this paraggraph). A long-unaccustomed sadness struck the habbalah who couldn't help remembering her days with Ketriel as an angel, as the "[n]o human cousel [that] hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things." She finished the war out with a dingy enthusiasm, unable to shake that memory, so incompatible with her habbalic belief that Hell was where God wanted her. Returning to a familiar feeling ~ desperation ~ Todahlael sought to eliminate these memories and thoughts, to no longer be troubled by an unwelcome longing for the Light of Heaven. If Mariel hadn't been devoured by a munchy-haunted Haagenti, she'd likely have pulled off some hare-brained scheme designed to remove herself from Malphas's service to that of Oblivion. However, Mariel had proved tasty some centuries before, and so Todahlael settled for jumping ship into the service of Ascetus instead.
"The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth."
Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln, October 3, 1863."
The work of Ignorance didn't suit Todahlael as well as her previous two jobs, and it certainly did not have the memory-exorcising effect she wished. She found herself obsessed with Thanksgiving Day, doing her prince's work by using it every month as a way to spread ignorance of the true cost of the pleasures and gifts the U.S. populace had received. The rest of the year saw the fruits of Todahlael's practice for that one day in November; she grew quite deft at nurturing vague, impersonal gratitude as a way to prevent atrocities from coming to light or responsibility being taken for the actions of an individual, group, or their ancestors. Ironically, she became known among Ascetus's servitors for exactly this kind of work.
Though she had been, quite naturally, stripped of all the gifts Malphas had given her in her 1500-year-service to the prince of Factions, Todahlael found herself quickly acquiring replacements over the course of a mere century serving Ascetus. By the century's end, she was among Ascetus's knights, and she was granted a captainship shortly after Macy's started their parade. Her focus, nigh unto a djinnish obsession, with the day in which an entire country ate more food than any other day, even more than a few days combined, convinced Haagenti to grant her his attunement, as well.
It was Thanksgiving Day, 1954, that Todahlael, firmly ensconced in the role of a sweet little old church lady, led a prayer at a charity dinner her church was leading. Afterwards, a snappily dressed man who had been introduced to her an hour or two before as one of the big donors to the church's charity programs walked up to her. "I liked your prayer," he said. "Especially how it avoided any of the real reasons we've got all this food to give. And why they're poor, for that matter. It's you who should be Grateful." And suddenly, Todahlael knew who the handsome man was, as she felt the Word shoulder itself a space among her Forces. She stammered out a "Thank you" to the man's bemusedly cocked eyebrow, one half of his mouth smiled, and he turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Ever since, Todahlael has continued the same work that earned her her Word, encouraging humans to mimic the humble selflessness of thanks as a way of avoiding guilt, responsibility, or critical thought as to what they could do to prevent the evil of the world. Not a few demons distrust her now, uncertain what to do with a demon ~ especially one of the habbalot ~ who carries such a seemingly Heavenly Word. To tell the truth (but why would we do that?), Todahlael herself has struggled with her Word, as it is all too easy for her efforts to have the opposite effect of that she intended. Her doubts about her place in the Descending Hierarchy have fled, however. God's Hellish representative (Lucifer) rewarded her for her efforts, after all ~ this must be the work God wants her to do.
Todahlael is still adjusting to having received a Word, and such a big Word at that! She's only held it for about 65 years, two-fifths of her time in the service of Ascetus, and a mere fraction of an eyeblink for a being whose age is measured in the billions of years, which accounts for her possessing only a single Word-Attunement when most celestials with such a Word have two. In truth, she knows that she has access to fewer Word-Forces than she should ~ surely Gratitude is a major Word! ~ but she's been facing some strong opposition from Maodea, her Heavenly counterpart, the angel of Giving Thanks (ofan of the Sword under Etiquette), who's been getting aid from the angel of Charity (a malak of Generosity) and the angel of Restitution (an eloah of Judgment). The inherent dangers of her Word, on top of the lasting effects of her earlier doubts concerning her diabolicity, have resulted in a bit of Discord. Todahlael's vessel's stoop and slow gait aren't intended to mimic arthritis ~ they are actually arthritis, and will be carried over into any other vessel she might take. Similarly, she finds a good feast almost impossible to pass up, and she always overeats.
Celestial Appearance: Todahlael has allowed the ravages of age to show on her celestial form. It remains luminous, glowing with a grayish-brown light the color of poorly-cooked meat, and her eyes appear even larger than they did before the Fall behind broad-diametered rose-colored coke-bottle glasses. They are human eyes, though, not the alien eyes of the elohim, and they are a much more pleasant brown than the light which surrounds her, the color of a crispy, fatty turkey skin promising delicious delights beneath. Whereas elohim tend to carry an ageless, vital androgyny, Todahlael's Fallen form is androgynous by dint of age, so withered and twisted and stick-thin dry that no gender can be ascertained among the pale wrinkles that envelop her form. It is those wrinkles that provide a topographical map to the self-mutilations that mark Todahlael as a habbalah. Piercings ride the crest of these fleshy waves, while tattoos peek out from their valleys. Scars artfully interrupt their sumptuous curves, and the twin edges of her flayed edges blend imperceptibly into the ridges of ancient skin. No clothing covers her form, though a couple of napkins seem to have blown against her chest and crotch, stuck there by a wind unseen and unfelt except by those napkins' flapping. A fork and a knife (to which is attached the flag of whichever country the nearest human is a citizen of) fill her hands.
Vessel: An older woman in her 80s, shorter than her skeleton would actually warrant thanks to a stoop that tells of long hours spent hunched over a keyboard. Her hair is the faded black of a cheap dyejob covering up a soft silver, and her brown eyes are filled with a watery-warm sincerity. Cat-eyes glasses on a pearled string often rest atop a pale blue sweater that covers up a long, floral dress. Her shoes are reasonable, and her nails sport a new pastel every other week.
Total Forces ~ 12
Word-Forces ~ 9
Corporeal Forces ~ 4 Strength 8 Agility 8
Ethereal Forces ~ 3 Intelligence 7 Precision 5
Celestial Forces ~ 5 Will 12 Perception 8
Vessel ~ Human/1
Role ~ Little Old Church Lady/4 (Status/2)
Servant ~ Pastor/2 (Class/4)
Skills ~ Artistry (Cooking)/4, Computer Operation/2, Emote/5, Savoir-Faire/3, Singing/1
Attunements ~ Captain of Twisted Memory**, Demon of Gratitude***, Habbalah of Gluttony, Habbalah of Ignorance****, Knight of Stupidity*****, Memory Gap******, Modern Dark Age*******
Songs ~ Charm (Ethereal/6, Celestial/3), Forbidding (Ethereal/3), Harmony (Corporeal/6), Opening (Ethereal/3, Celestial/1), Seals (Ethereal/5), Solace (Ethereal/5), Succor (Corporeal/2)
Additional Rites ~ Lead a prayer (or equivalent) of impersonal or vague thanks; Spend an hour in conversation, monologue, or writing (et cetera) downplaying/ignoring/covering up past or present atrocities
Discord ~ Disabled/3********, Gluttonous/1, Pity/1, Obsessed (Thanksgiving)/1
* It is dissonant for a servitor of Ascetus to correct any belief that goes against the facts, or to promote education or enlightenment. Rites: Convince someone not to think twice; Spread a lie to the public, by posting it to the Net, handing out flyers in the street for an hour, etc.
** These are the most feared vassals of Ignorance, as they can twist known and unknown concepts into knots that cannot be deciphered. By spending 4 essence, they can change a 'truth' into whatever they chose. For example, they could change the answers in the back of a particular book, change a few 1's to 0's in machine code, or make a Macintosh a real computer, but they couldn't change pi to equal 4 or any universally affecting 'constant'.
*** As long as someone is even vaguely or indirectly experiencing pleasure, Todahlael can cause them to ignore one unpleasant thing per point of Essence spent, with a successful Will roll. The Attunement's effects only last as long as the specific pleasure does, though events during its effects can prolong the results. Normally, this Attunement must be activated individually for each intended victim; however, if Todahlael cooks a feast to be used as the anchoring pleasure, the Attunement will affect a number of people equal to the check digit of her Artistry (Cooking) roll with each activation.
**** Same as Habbalah of Factions.
***** By concentrating on someone and spending one essence, the knight can sense the one thing that the person has little or no knowledge, but wishes to learn about. {And, yes, "stupidity" is a word with a long ableist, racist, and classist history. This is Hell we're talking about, after all.}
****** The demon can cause a target to forget a specific piece of information. This requires a Contest of Will vs. the target's Perception; the demon may spend Essence to add to his will. The check digit determines the type of information that can be erased:
Check Digit~Information Lost
1~Something minor in short-term memory (a name or phone number just heard)
2~Something major in short-term memory (the just-heard time and place of a meeting)
3~Something minor in medium/long-term memory (the phone number at work; your spouse's middle name)
4~Something major in medium/long-term memory (the exit to get to your parents' house; the password to your AOL account)
5~Something minor in long-term memory (the name of your first-grade teacher)
6~Something major in long-term memory (your wedding anniversary; the Pythagorean Theorem)
Information lost in this way will be "on the tip of your tongue" or misremembered in such a way as to be useless. The target can be reminded of it, but must make a Will roll; the information is not retained until a successful roll is made.
******* By spending 2 essence per person the demon wishes to affect (to a maximum of his celestial forces) he can have them interpret a sign, image, or oration the wrong way, or ignore the enlightening effects of teachers and books (negating any potential for learning from that source) for one day.
******** "Crippled" is a slur.
She's a servitor of Ascetus, the balseraph demon prince of Ignorance and one of many non-canon Superiors in my version of In Nomine (which I call Reality Beulah, for reasons I'll explain later). I'ven't written him up yet, but he's a blend of Ascetus and Astaroth from the In Nomine Collection's Rogue Gallery. All relevant game information has been provided.
*****************
Todahlael, like many celestials, is a very old being. She was created in Ketriel's service, and diligently, dispassionately served the aeon archangel of Grace for millions of years before the Fall. And it wasn't the Fall that sent her to Hell, either, as she fought those who are now her friends and allies after Metatron's murder. Afterwards, secure in the knowledge that the newly-minted demons were safely locked away forever, she continued just as she had before the Rebellion, bringing joyful surprises and easing luck to the humans who had been the excuse for that shocking crime. And then the human Lilith freed the demons.
Though her faith that everything would turn out for the best by the grace of God had finally been shaken, Todahlael settled into the new role with which Ketriel, the first of the Archangels known as the Four Soteroi, charged its angels with an odd mix of comfort and desperation. Salvation, after all, comes from many sources ~ famously, from grace, faith, and acts. Todahlael and her coworkers coordinated well with Yves's angels, arranging for the sort of inexplicable gifts and luck that came at just the right time to rescue a human soul from becoming the plaything of the liberated demons. But the entire time, she hid in her Heart a secret wish that someone would do the same for her, would restore her faith in the God which created her and rescue her from the Fate she feared she knew was awaiting her.
Ketriel had been clear in its charge ~ grace is not grace if it can be caused. In other words, asking for grace destroys the possibility of grace. Todahlael was nothing if not dutiful, and took the aeon's teaching to heart. She never asked for the help she needed so greatly, and so she never received it. Her Outcasting and Fall were slow, a creeping teeter that lasted from Lilith's unlocking the gates to Hell in 15,000 p.e.v. (prior era vulgaris, before the common era) all the way to her Heart shattering during the first part of the 4th century e.v., during Constantine the Great's reign as Byzantine Emperor.
Rejecting the gentleness of her past, Todahlael took up with Malphas, wielding unexpected luck as a weapon against relationships and unity. Nothing promotes a lonely individuality like jealousy over a friend's seemingly unbalanced good fortune. This work kept her busy for a millennium and a half, slowly working her way all over the globe, taking inconspicuous roles amongst the irredeemable throngs of the human herd. Often, she chose to appear as a supporter of some alliance or solidarity, while secretly working to undermine it, to set it ablaze with the disastrous inferno of envy.
Like most of her friends in the service of Factions, the American Civil War was yet another orgy of a party in an increasingly dense social calendar. Such joy Todahlael found as brother fought against brother, bloodily severing ties for often insignificant reasons. General Lee, for example, who believed in the North's cause but fought for the South simply because it was his home. It was one of Todahlael's friends who outmaneuvered the malakim surrounding the general, turning Lee's honor against the unifying actions Heaven wanted to see from him.
As so often happens, this constant din of fun and games lent itself to a moment of melancholy. For Todahlael, this came when she read Lincoln's declaration of Thanksgiving (reproduced after this paraggraph). A long-unaccustomed sadness struck the habbalah who couldn't help remembering her days with Ketriel as an angel, as the "[n]o human cousel [that] hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things." She finished the war out with a dingy enthusiasm, unable to shake that memory, so incompatible with her habbalic belief that Hell was where God wanted her. Returning to a familiar feeling ~ desperation ~ Todahlael sought to eliminate these memories and thoughts, to no longer be troubled by an unwelcome longing for the Light of Heaven. If Mariel hadn't been devoured by a munchy-haunted Haagenti, she'd likely have pulled off some hare-brained scheme designed to remove herself from Malphas's service to that of Oblivion. However, Mariel had proved tasty some centuries before, and so Todahlael settled for jumping ship into the service of Ascetus instead.
"The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth."
Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln, October 3, 1863."
The work of Ignorance didn't suit Todahlael as well as her previous two jobs, and it certainly did not have the memory-exorcising effect she wished. She found herself obsessed with Thanksgiving Day, doing her prince's work by using it every month as a way to spread ignorance of the true cost of the pleasures and gifts the U.S. populace had received. The rest of the year saw the fruits of Todahlael's practice for that one day in November; she grew quite deft at nurturing vague, impersonal gratitude as a way to prevent atrocities from coming to light or responsibility being taken for the actions of an individual, group, or their ancestors. Ironically, she became known among Ascetus's servitors for exactly this kind of work.
Though she had been, quite naturally, stripped of all the gifts Malphas had given her in her 1500-year-service to the prince of Factions, Todahlael found herself quickly acquiring replacements over the course of a mere century serving Ascetus. By the century's end, she was among Ascetus's knights, and she was granted a captainship shortly after Macy's started their parade. Her focus, nigh unto a djinnish obsession, with the day in which an entire country ate more food than any other day, even more than a few days combined, convinced Haagenti to grant her his attunement, as well.
It was Thanksgiving Day, 1954, that Todahlael, firmly ensconced in the role of a sweet little old church lady, led a prayer at a charity dinner her church was leading. Afterwards, a snappily dressed man who had been introduced to her an hour or two before as one of the big donors to the church's charity programs walked up to her. "I liked your prayer," he said. "Especially how it avoided any of the real reasons we've got all this food to give. And why they're poor, for that matter. It's you who should be Grateful." And suddenly, Todahlael knew who the handsome man was, as she felt the Word shoulder itself a space among her Forces. She stammered out a "Thank you" to the man's bemusedly cocked eyebrow, one half of his mouth smiled, and he turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Ever since, Todahlael has continued the same work that earned her her Word, encouraging humans to mimic the humble selflessness of thanks as a way of avoiding guilt, responsibility, or critical thought as to what they could do to prevent the evil of the world. Not a few demons distrust her now, uncertain what to do with a demon ~ especially one of the habbalot ~ who carries such a seemingly Heavenly Word. To tell the truth (but why would we do that?), Todahlael herself has struggled with her Word, as it is all too easy for her efforts to have the opposite effect of that she intended. Her doubts about her place in the Descending Hierarchy have fled, however. God's Hellish representative (Lucifer) rewarded her for her efforts, after all ~ this must be the work God wants her to do.
Todahlael is still adjusting to having received a Word, and such a big Word at that! She's only held it for about 65 years, two-fifths of her time in the service of Ascetus, and a mere fraction of an eyeblink for a being whose age is measured in the billions of years, which accounts for her possessing only a single Word-Attunement when most celestials with such a Word have two. In truth, she knows that she has access to fewer Word-Forces than she should ~ surely Gratitude is a major Word! ~ but she's been facing some strong opposition from Maodea, her Heavenly counterpart, the angel of Giving Thanks (ofan of the Sword under Etiquette), who's been getting aid from the angel of Charity (a malak of Generosity) and the angel of Restitution (an eloah of Judgment). The inherent dangers of her Word, on top of the lasting effects of her earlier doubts concerning her diabolicity, have resulted in a bit of Discord. Todahlael's vessel's stoop and slow gait aren't intended to mimic arthritis ~ they are actually arthritis, and will be carried over into any other vessel she might take. Similarly, she finds a good feast almost impossible to pass up, and she always overeats.
Celestial Appearance: Todahlael has allowed the ravages of age to show on her celestial form. It remains luminous, glowing with a grayish-brown light the color of poorly-cooked meat, and her eyes appear even larger than they did before the Fall behind broad-diametered rose-colored coke-bottle glasses. They are human eyes, though, not the alien eyes of the elohim, and they are a much more pleasant brown than the light which surrounds her, the color of a crispy, fatty turkey skin promising delicious delights beneath. Whereas elohim tend to carry an ageless, vital androgyny, Todahlael's Fallen form is androgynous by dint of age, so withered and twisted and stick-thin dry that no gender can be ascertained among the pale wrinkles that envelop her form. It is those wrinkles that provide a topographical map to the self-mutilations that mark Todahlael as a habbalah. Piercings ride the crest of these fleshy waves, while tattoos peek out from their valleys. Scars artfully interrupt their sumptuous curves, and the twin edges of her flayed edges blend imperceptibly into the ridges of ancient skin. No clothing covers her form, though a couple of napkins seem to have blown against her chest and crotch, stuck there by a wind unseen and unfelt except by those napkins' flapping. A fork and a knife (to which is attached the flag of whichever country the nearest human is a citizen of) fill her hands.
Vessel: An older woman in her 80s, shorter than her skeleton would actually warrant thanks to a stoop that tells of long hours spent hunched over a keyboard. Her hair is the faded black of a cheap dyejob covering up a soft silver, and her brown eyes are filled with a watery-warm sincerity. Cat-eyes glasses on a pearled string often rest atop a pale blue sweater that covers up a long, floral dress. Her shoes are reasonable, and her nails sport a new pastel every other week.
Total Forces ~ 12
Word-Forces ~ 9
Corporeal Forces ~ 4 Strength 8 Agility 8
Ethereal Forces ~ 3 Intelligence 7 Precision 5
Celestial Forces ~ 5 Will 12 Perception 8
Vessel ~ Human/1
Role ~ Little Old Church Lady/4 (Status/2)
Servant ~ Pastor/2 (Class/4)
Skills ~ Artistry (Cooking)/4, Computer Operation/2, Emote/5, Savoir-Faire/3, Singing/1
Attunements ~ Captain of Twisted Memory**, Demon of Gratitude***, Habbalah of Gluttony, Habbalah of Ignorance****, Knight of Stupidity*****, Memory Gap******, Modern Dark Age*******
Songs ~ Charm (Ethereal/6, Celestial/3), Forbidding (Ethereal/3), Harmony (Corporeal/6), Opening (Ethereal/3, Celestial/1), Seals (Ethereal/5), Solace (Ethereal/5), Succor (Corporeal/2)
Additional Rites ~ Lead a prayer (or equivalent) of impersonal or vague thanks; Spend an hour in conversation, monologue, or writing (et cetera) downplaying/ignoring/covering up past or present atrocities
Discord ~ Disabled/3********, Gluttonous/1, Pity/1, Obsessed (Thanksgiving)/1
* It is dissonant for a servitor of Ascetus to correct any belief that goes against the facts, or to promote education or enlightenment. Rites: Convince someone not to think twice; Spread a lie to the public, by posting it to the Net, handing out flyers in the street for an hour, etc.
** These are the most feared vassals of Ignorance, as they can twist known and unknown concepts into knots that cannot be deciphered. By spending 4 essence, they can change a 'truth' into whatever they chose. For example, they could change the answers in the back of a particular book, change a few 1's to 0's in machine code, or make a Macintosh a real computer, but they couldn't change pi to equal 4 or any universally affecting 'constant'.
*** As long as someone is even vaguely or indirectly experiencing pleasure, Todahlael can cause them to ignore one unpleasant thing per point of Essence spent, with a successful Will roll. The Attunement's effects only last as long as the specific pleasure does, though events during its effects can prolong the results. Normally, this Attunement must be activated individually for each intended victim; however, if Todahlael cooks a feast to be used as the anchoring pleasure, the Attunement will affect a number of people equal to the check digit of her Artistry (Cooking) roll with each activation.
**** Same as Habbalah of Factions.
***** By concentrating on someone and spending one essence, the knight can sense the one thing that the person has little or no knowledge, but wishes to learn about. {And, yes, "stupidity" is a word with a long ableist, racist, and classist history. This is Hell we're talking about, after all.}
****** The demon can cause a target to forget a specific piece of information. This requires a Contest of Will vs. the target's Perception; the demon may spend Essence to add to his will. The check digit determines the type of information that can be erased:
Check Digit~Information Lost
1~Something minor in short-term memory (a name or phone number just heard)
2~Something major in short-term memory (the just-heard time and place of a meeting)
3~Something minor in medium/long-term memory (the phone number at work; your spouse's middle name)
4~Something major in medium/long-term memory (the exit to get to your parents' house; the password to your AOL account)
5~Something minor in long-term memory (the name of your first-grade teacher)
6~Something major in long-term memory (your wedding anniversary; the Pythagorean Theorem)
Information lost in this way will be "on the tip of your tongue" or misremembered in such a way as to be useless. The target can be reminded of it, but must make a Will roll; the information is not retained until a successful roll is made.
******* By spending 2 essence per person the demon wishes to affect (to a maximum of his celestial forces) he can have them interpret a sign, image, or oration the wrong way, or ignore the enlightening effects of teachers and books (negating any potential for learning from that source) for one day.
******** "Crippled" is a slur.
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
My chapel is a warm kitchen, with soup on the stove, bread in the oven, and good wise friends (Traveller Tuesday #22)
OK, let’s create a new religion ~ you probably remember that this is one of my favorite things!
Frustratingly, I can’t seem to find the version of my world creation file that has the 1d20 version of the God View table, so I roll 3d6 and find that this religion’s basic theology is avatar polytheism (6). Like certain interpretations of various Hinduisms, this religion has a multitude of many gods, all of which are manifestations or names or forms of a small handful of divine beings. Similar interpretations of Greco-Roman religion (Poseidon Earth-Shaker is not necessarily the same as Poseidon Horse-Lover; alternatively, Neo-Platonism was all about mapping the manifestations of the One through the Ideal Forms to the bewildering diversity of earthly beings), Afro-Diasporic religions (where different “roads” or “paths” of various beings are discussed, and the orishas are sometimes referred to as classes of spirit beings rather than individuals), and Neo-Wicca (which oft repeats that “All gods are one God; all goddesses are one Goddess”).
A 2d6-1 result of 6 tells us that this religion preaches that worshipers will be received into paradise when they die, whereas the same roll comes up 8 to reveal that the religion requires a monthly devotional practice. This starts to give me a bit of an inspiration about this religion, as I begin to see in my mind’s eye images of coven meetings every “moon” ON the moon. Maybe it’s related to Ishee’s parahuman and bioroid Bio-Witches movement?
On the other hand a 10 on 2d6+1 tells us that there is no organization beyond the regional level and a 13 on 2d6+3 gives the religion a highly informal liturgy with some limitations on topics or references. I’m starting to feel like this religion is SUPER domestic and homey, pursuing a cozy feeling as its preferred altered state of consciousness within a Neo-Wiccan avatar-dualism theology. These monthly devotions with their highly informal liturgies could be very classic witchy ~ not 13 people around a cauldron, but a bunch of folk gathered in a kitchen cooking together. Galactic culture as a whole might be stymied by the deep, deep importance laid upon these gatherings, but remember that this culture treats eating as a private matter away from everyone else. Shockingly to Assemonite society, members of this religion allow people who aren’t their family or spouse to see them eat ~ it’d be the equivalent of, say, a high-class Victorian woman showing her ankles to someone who wasn’t her husband or parents, or a conservative Muslim woman taking off her burqa outside of the home, or ancient Roman Christians performing unisex rituals where rich and poor participate equally. Incredibly intimate, and one’s coven is thus composed of your ultimate confidantes.
The 2d6-2 roll for Missionary Fervor comes up 4, revealing active efforts to proselytize the religion among a limited number of sophont species. In truth, this is probably about as high as it makes sense for this religion to have on this table ~ zealous proselytizing on Amon Assemon would likely result in any number of indignant slaps, if not worse, as you invited people to violate a cultural taboo. And if we hold to the Neo-Wiccan duotheism, then the religion would likely not make sense to species with strong gender binaries. Hell, it likely flourishes among humans, but I’m a human and nonbinary and I find Neo-Wicca too binarist for me to practice it!
This religion stretches beyond whatever meager atmosphere Amon Assemon might have, as it has tens of thousands of adherents (3d6-4=4). Turning to random.org, I set the number at 73,217 practitioners ~ there’s only 532 unaligned people left on Amon Assemon! That’s 6% of the moon’s population, so I’m gonna roll 1d60 (divided by ten) to figure out this religion’s share of that population: 4.4%, which is most of that remaining population, or 390 sophonts. Rolling the dWikipedia, let’s call it the Tickseed Feast.
Oh, and I’m thinking that the higher levels of organization (surface region, planetary, galactic region) are composed of 4th degree and higher practitioners who spend their time traveling between various monthly home meetings to dispense wisdom and provide cohesion to the religion. 1st degree would be a new initiate or acolyte, 2nd a full initiate able to participate fully in the religion, and 3rd the ability to act as a host and invite people to your home for the monthly gatherings.
Going back and reading the earlier blog post on the Barnwell Tradition of Scientological Witchcraft on Ishee, I determine that there is no connection between the two religions.
Religious landscape of Amon Assemon:
5227 sophonts (59%) atheist/agnostic/non-religious
2747 sophonts (31%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners
390 sophonts (4.4%) the Tickseed Feast (Tickseeds, Feasters, Tickers, Seedies)
354 humans (4%) Azeyrenawt
Frustratingly, I can’t seem to find the version of my world creation file that has the 1d20 version of the God View table, so I roll 3d6 and find that this religion’s basic theology is avatar polytheism (6). Like certain interpretations of various Hinduisms, this religion has a multitude of many gods, all of which are manifestations or names or forms of a small handful of divine beings. Similar interpretations of Greco-Roman religion (Poseidon Earth-Shaker is not necessarily the same as Poseidon Horse-Lover; alternatively, Neo-Platonism was all about mapping the manifestations of the One through the Ideal Forms to the bewildering diversity of earthly beings), Afro-Diasporic religions (where different “roads” or “paths” of various beings are discussed, and the orishas are sometimes referred to as classes of spirit beings rather than individuals), and Neo-Wicca (which oft repeats that “All gods are one God; all goddesses are one Goddess”).
A 2d6-1 result of 6 tells us that this religion preaches that worshipers will be received into paradise when they die, whereas the same roll comes up 8 to reveal that the religion requires a monthly devotional practice. This starts to give me a bit of an inspiration about this religion, as I begin to see in my mind’s eye images of coven meetings every “moon” ON the moon. Maybe it’s related to Ishee’s parahuman and bioroid Bio-Witches movement?
On the other hand a 10 on 2d6+1 tells us that there is no organization beyond the regional level and a 13 on 2d6+3 gives the religion a highly informal liturgy with some limitations on topics or references. I’m starting to feel like this religion is SUPER domestic and homey, pursuing a cozy feeling as its preferred altered state of consciousness within a Neo-Wiccan avatar-dualism theology. These monthly devotions with their highly informal liturgies could be very classic witchy ~ not 13 people around a cauldron, but a bunch of folk gathered in a kitchen cooking together. Galactic culture as a whole might be stymied by the deep, deep importance laid upon these gatherings, but remember that this culture treats eating as a private matter away from everyone else. Shockingly to Assemonite society, members of this religion allow people who aren’t their family or spouse to see them eat ~ it’d be the equivalent of, say, a high-class Victorian woman showing her ankles to someone who wasn’t her husband or parents, or a conservative Muslim woman taking off her burqa outside of the home, or ancient Roman Christians performing unisex rituals where rich and poor participate equally. Incredibly intimate, and one’s coven is thus composed of your ultimate confidantes.
The 2d6-2 roll for Missionary Fervor comes up 4, revealing active efforts to proselytize the religion among a limited number of sophont species. In truth, this is probably about as high as it makes sense for this religion to have on this table ~ zealous proselytizing on Amon Assemon would likely result in any number of indignant slaps, if not worse, as you invited people to violate a cultural taboo. And if we hold to the Neo-Wiccan duotheism, then the religion would likely not make sense to species with strong gender binaries. Hell, it likely flourishes among humans, but I’m a human and nonbinary and I find Neo-Wicca too binarist for me to practice it!
This religion stretches beyond whatever meager atmosphere Amon Assemon might have, as it has tens of thousands of adherents (3d6-4=4). Turning to random.org, I set the number at 73,217 practitioners ~ there’s only 532 unaligned people left on Amon Assemon! That’s 6% of the moon’s population, so I’m gonna roll 1d60 (divided by ten) to figure out this religion’s share of that population: 4.4%, which is most of that remaining population, or 390 sophonts. Rolling the dWikipedia, let’s call it the Tickseed Feast.
Oh, and I’m thinking that the higher levels of organization (surface region, planetary, galactic region) are composed of 4th degree and higher practitioners who spend their time traveling between various monthly home meetings to dispense wisdom and provide cohesion to the religion. 1st degree would be a new initiate or acolyte, 2nd a full initiate able to participate fully in the religion, and 3rd the ability to act as a host and invite people to your home for the monthly gatherings.
Going back and reading the earlier blog post on the Barnwell Tradition of Scientological Witchcraft on Ishee, I determine that there is no connection between the two religions.
Religious landscape of Amon Assemon:
5227 sophonts (59%) atheist/agnostic/non-religious
2747 sophonts (31%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners
390 sophonts (4.4%) the Tickseed Feast (Tickseeds, Feasters, Tickers, Seedies)
354 humans (4%) Azeyrenawt
Sunday, November 18, 2018
What can I say? I, like Tolkien, love food (Design Domingo #22)
Breakfast (baknablag) commonly consists of a thick slice of mushroom loaf, some sausage, imported cheeses, and honey over boiled eggs for the rich. Common drinks at breakfast are grafhul, water, or tea with milk for the rich. It is very common to eat hearty breakfasts, including sausages, cured or salted bat and salamander meats, and meat-based spreads such as leberkaral (salamander sausage) or temkaral, or (for the rich) a sausage called khagskaral that dates back to the old Dalmato-Worthese Wars and is made using cave shrimp and elfin fermented tea, and soft cheeses such as gnomish cream cheese, Caaz Artois (Penguern), Brighentyih (western Sardis), rolled Baggenen (Worthese gnomes), Dorfcaaze (“town cheese”) and more.
The main meal of the day is lunch (aglazablag), eaten around noon. Dinner (lanzablag) is always a smaller meal, often consisting only of mushroom loaf, meat (never bat or salamander, which are reserved for earlier meals) or sausages, and some kind of vegetables for the rich, often stacked into a sort of sandwich.
With the exception of gnomish mustard for sausages, dwarfin dishes are rarely hot and spicy; the most popular herbs are traditionally thyme, chives, juniper berries, and caraway. Mustard (senf) is a very common accompaniment to sausages and can vary in strength, the most common version being sabssenf (medium hot). Baggendorf and the surrounding area are known for its particularly spicy mustard (called sabselsenf), which is used both as a table condiment and in local dishes such as sengilbotarber (pot roast with mustard). In the southern parts of the province near the Snowy Border with Penguern, a sweet variety of mustard (hulwulsenf) is made which is almost exclusively served with sieukaral. Horseradish is commonly used as a condiment either on its own ground into a paste or combined with mustard. In some regions of Worth, it is used with meats and sausages where mustard would otherwise be used.
Mushroom loaf (brot) is a significant part of dwarfin cuisine. It is served usually for breakfast and in the evening with other foods atop, but only as a side dish when the main meal is a type of pfotnei (soup). The importance of bread in dwarfin cuisine is also illustrated by words such as ilnezbrot (meaning supper, literally evening mushroom loaf) and brotoglik (snack, literally loaf time). Loaf types range from white (sieubrot) to grey (rafathbrot) to black (zrauschbrot), based on the exact mushroom and spices used. Some loafs also mix in ground cave-crab meat (hence abdakhbrot, mixed load).
Mushroom wine is popular among dwarfs. Sierling and Zarsanen are among the best-known varieties of this wine, while Badizdorfunden and Zudrahunden are, too. Grafhul is also very common, not only for breakfast, but also accompanying a piece of sweetened mushroom loaf (hulwulbrot) in the afternoon, usually on rest days or special occasions and birthdays. Grafhul houses are also very common.
Society: It must be stressed that dwarfs are fey beings. The structures of their thought and their society are alien to human minds. One example of such has already been mentioned ~ dwarfs care little about the product of their labor, or what they achieve thereby. King in the dwarfin mind is work. Work is the basic concept from which most of dwarfin life and philosophy is derived, analogous to the role of love or power or family (depending on your perspective) in human thought. Work is all. Well, work and honor. The only time you can get away with insulting a dwarf’s honor is if it would prevent them from working for days at a time. And even then, if it’s just days, the dwarf might take some time to do the math.
This can give dwarfin society a strangely disposable feeling, with beautiful pieces of practical art filling vast midden caverns simply because they were completed, treasure troves for subterranean races and adventuring parties. That same seeming disposability can be seen in their social structures. Children are considered things to work on, no different from any other work, and are considered complete once they in turn can work ~ just as a mining pick is done once it can be used to burrow. At that point, at the moment of their first labor, dwarfs became sovereign adults, with complete freedom to choose their work; the strictness of dwarfin parenting disappears in a second, and liberty is their new life. Suffice it to say that this transition occurs much earlier in a dwarf’s life than most human parents would feel comfortable with.
Dwarfs live in syndics, communal groups that fulfill the same role as families in human societies and who all do the same or related work. They live together, too, in sprawling warrens, though if a dwarf takes up a new line of work, they move and are welcomed into a new syndic. Some dwarfs even spend their life migrating around, never living in the same syndic twice. Many humans are surprised that such behavior is considered acceptable by a race focused on work ethic, expecting the dwarfs to look down on such lack of commitment. When they ask about it, dwarfs usually give them a blank blink and say, “But they’re working.”
Syndics operate as independent agents with little interruption by larger government. There are larger governmental bodies, called federations, but they restrict their focus tightly to only issues that affect multiple syndics, the interactions between syndics, or the race as a whole. They are universally run on democratic principles, with any member of an affiliated syndic able to just walk in on a deliberation, have their say, and vote. Dwarfs don’t cotton well to the idea of giving up their sovereignty to a representative or a ruler. The duke of Worth spends most of their time traveling among federations, gaining their cooperation and trust. It’s quite tiring.
The main meal of the day is lunch (aglazablag), eaten around noon. Dinner (lanzablag) is always a smaller meal, often consisting only of mushroom loaf, meat (never bat or salamander, which are reserved for earlier meals) or sausages, and some kind of vegetables for the rich, often stacked into a sort of sandwich.
With the exception of gnomish mustard for sausages, dwarfin dishes are rarely hot and spicy; the most popular herbs are traditionally thyme, chives, juniper berries, and caraway. Mustard (senf) is a very common accompaniment to sausages and can vary in strength, the most common version being sabssenf (medium hot). Baggendorf and the surrounding area are known for its particularly spicy mustard (called sabselsenf), which is used both as a table condiment and in local dishes such as sengilbotarber (pot roast with mustard). In the southern parts of the province near the Snowy Border with Penguern, a sweet variety of mustard (hulwulsenf) is made which is almost exclusively served with sieukaral. Horseradish is commonly used as a condiment either on its own ground into a paste or combined with mustard. In some regions of Worth, it is used with meats and sausages where mustard would otherwise be used.
Mushroom loaf (brot) is a significant part of dwarfin cuisine. It is served usually for breakfast and in the evening with other foods atop, but only as a side dish when the main meal is a type of pfotnei (soup). The importance of bread in dwarfin cuisine is also illustrated by words such as ilnezbrot (meaning supper, literally evening mushroom loaf) and brotoglik (snack, literally loaf time). Loaf types range from white (sieubrot) to grey (rafathbrot) to black (zrauschbrot), based on the exact mushroom and spices used. Some loafs also mix in ground cave-crab meat (hence abdakhbrot, mixed load).
Mushroom wine is popular among dwarfs. Sierling and Zarsanen are among the best-known varieties of this wine, while Badizdorfunden and Zudrahunden are, too. Grafhul is also very common, not only for breakfast, but also accompanying a piece of sweetened mushroom loaf (hulwulbrot) in the afternoon, usually on rest days or special occasions and birthdays. Grafhul houses are also very common.
Society: It must be stressed that dwarfs are fey beings. The structures of their thought and their society are alien to human minds. One example of such has already been mentioned ~ dwarfs care little about the product of their labor, or what they achieve thereby. King in the dwarfin mind is work. Work is the basic concept from which most of dwarfin life and philosophy is derived, analogous to the role of love or power or family (depending on your perspective) in human thought. Work is all. Well, work and honor. The only time you can get away with insulting a dwarf’s honor is if it would prevent them from working for days at a time. And even then, if it’s just days, the dwarf might take some time to do the math.
This can give dwarfin society a strangely disposable feeling, with beautiful pieces of practical art filling vast midden caverns simply because they were completed, treasure troves for subterranean races and adventuring parties. That same seeming disposability can be seen in their social structures. Children are considered things to work on, no different from any other work, and are considered complete once they in turn can work ~ just as a mining pick is done once it can be used to burrow. At that point, at the moment of their first labor, dwarfs became sovereign adults, with complete freedom to choose their work; the strictness of dwarfin parenting disappears in a second, and liberty is their new life. Suffice it to say that this transition occurs much earlier in a dwarf’s life than most human parents would feel comfortable with.
Dwarfs live in syndics, communal groups that fulfill the same role as families in human societies and who all do the same or related work. They live together, too, in sprawling warrens, though if a dwarf takes up a new line of work, they move and are welcomed into a new syndic. Some dwarfs even spend their life migrating around, never living in the same syndic twice. Many humans are surprised that such behavior is considered acceptable by a race focused on work ethic, expecting the dwarfs to look down on such lack of commitment. When they ask about it, dwarfs usually give them a blank blink and say, “But they’re working.”
Syndics operate as independent agents with little interruption by larger government. There are larger governmental bodies, called federations, but they restrict their focus tightly to only issues that affect multiple syndics, the interactions between syndics, or the race as a whole. They are universally run on democratic principles, with any member of an affiliated syndic able to just walk in on a deliberation, have their say, and vote. Dwarfs don’t cotton well to the idea of giving up their sovereignty to a representative or a ruler. The duke of Worth spends most of their time traveling among federations, gaining their cooperation and trust. It’s quite tiring.
Friday, November 16, 2018
Let's keep making an adventuring party! (Fantasy Friday #22)
Now that I’ve engaged my “Secret Vice” (as Tolkien called it), I’ve the urge to return to playing with that cartomantic character creation system. We might as well create a whole adventuring party with this method ~ we’re halfway there already!
Number three has the following spread:
Nature: Brass 7
Spirit: Gold 6
Body: Silver 12
Mind: The Priest 5
Nurture: Bahamut 13
Strength: White 1
Dexterity: Black 2
Constitution: Silver 2
Intelligence: Gold 9
Wisdom: Silver 6
Charisma: White 8
This character has three Silver Dragons, indicating a strong just streak, and also Bahamut!! They were definitely touched by a powerful force for good at some point. And chromatics are in the minority ~ this just might be an uncomplicatedly good character for once.
Like all good dragons, the brass in Nature indicates a predominance of cognitive talent ~ six of its nine tokens go to the Mind card and three to Body. It also represents wisdom and perception. I’m a little worried about the character ending up overly similar to Forsetilafom, with their use of Sense Motive as a primary weapon. Looking ahead, I note that the Priest card is in the Mind position. Mayhaps this character is some sort of religious judge? Like a qadi or something? Geographically, that would show up in either the not-Maghreb or in Scarhas (the not-Middle East). The primary religion of Scarhas is the Haćo religion, which is based on the Jedi. However, Time replaces the Force in their construction, with Destiny and Fate as the Light and Dark Sides. The idea of a Jedi qadi is rather juicy to me!
A gold dragon sits within the character’s Spirit with her honor and nobility of spirit, gifting tokens to Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma. This is central to their personality, but it’s not an indicator of their truest self (which is wise and perceptive). This is all screaming for the character to be a Haćo knight, probably one focused on the application of the religion’s laws. Their Body is marked by a silver dragon’s justice and judgment, and each of the three physical ability scores gets an additional token. What does it mean for a Body to be just? It seems that, mathematically speaking, it indicates that the character has taken care to equalize their physical development.
Here’s one of the important cards: a Priest’s protection is the mark of their mind. Wisdom takes a lead in tokens as it receives four (the rest go to Charisma). A wise, perceptive nature with a just body and a protective mind, all suffused with an honorable spirit ~ this is the very image of a Haćo. Bahamut’s goodness, generosity, and leadership is the first thing the character improved on. It functions as a copy of the Mind card, so a Priestly Bahamut gives a token to Wisdom. It seems the Haćo still practice the childhood isolation of old, gathering Time-sensitive children and cloistering them away to learn their lessons early.
The silver dragon in Wisdom gives one of those tokens away to Constitution. Some sense of judgment, early on, toughened the character. I feel like the synergy between the two ability scores is the thing here. Both are about being tough, one a toughness in the body and the other in the mind. Something taught this character from a young age that, if they were to see good persevere, it would have to, well, persevere. Good will does nothing if you can’t survive, if you can’t take a blow. There was likely an important moment where the character saw some good fail to come to fruition because of its own fragility, some failing of virtue that taught this lesson. Another character might have allowed the seed of cynicism to sprout therefrom and to leave the way of good by the side of the road like an unwanted child, but not this one. This character merely promised that they would be better, more committed to the cause of Destiny, would learn from the other’s mistake.
Our first evil dragon shows up in Charisma! A white dragon represents speed, ferocity, and agility, so I’m imagining the character becoming quite full of themselves, with an inflated sense of their own willfulness and invulnerability, and trying to force good into their home situation. After all, why build goodness with charity and talking, when ferocity and force are so much quicker? Bull-headedness can often give one a very persuasive cocky swagger, which is what I see happening here. Charisma steals two tokens from Wisdom as we begin to enter Anakin territory.
Our descent into the questionable word of midi-chlorians, dodgy pseudo-Hellenic tragedy ethics, and dodgier pseudo-Shakespearean dialog continues as the silver dragon in Constitution gives a token to Strength. This tells me that the character overworked themselves, pushing to gain the ability to push others into doing good, even when they didn’t want to. Most nights at this stage in the character’s life bore starry witness to hours of exercise and physical training. Lack of sleep takes its toll in the end, however.
When bullying the bad for the good didn’t quite work out the way this character suspected, they began their real 40 days in the desert. Their Fate began to stretch over the All of Time. The temptation to use underhanded methods rose within them. The truth began to lose its glitter as it seemed so much easier to tell people whatever words would bend their behavior towards fulfilling their Destiny rather than their Fate. And since force failed, perhaps stealth could succeed? The black dragon in Dexterity steals a token from Charisma, as their lies and the seething anger within them are laid bare.
This revelation, no doubt, frightened the character. Their community showed them what they hadn’t seen ~ that, as dedicated to Destiny as they were, their Fate was the only place this route could lead. I see them retreating into themself, throwing themself into punishing exercise regimes intended more for self-flagellation and purification than for physical development. Stress positions and lifting more weight than their body could handle cause the white dragon in Strength to steal a token from Dexterity.
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Government of qweens (Traveller Tuesday #21)
What kind of government does the Drag Moon have? Before I even roll it, I wanna say that the planet sounds very much like the Radical Fairy dream ~ a little spread out, perhapos, for such a communal people as us (and eating in private, WTF?), but nonetheless, I’m starting to think of Amon Assemon as a queer sanctuary away from the chaos and crowds of Ishee. Anyway, 2D6-4 rolls a 4, which means these qweens have a representative democracy, which deals with (1d3=) but a single faction or rival. That thorn in the side of this republic has its type determined by another roll on the government table, which comes up 2, for a participating democracy. It seems that there’s a move against representation swelling on Amon Assemon. I imagine it’s got the tenor of a lot of complaints about professional politicians not grounded in a homestead and arguments against distant representatives being able to represent one’s concerns when they don’t share one’s environmental reality. Some elements might also mix in resistance to offworld control. A 2d6 roll of 9 tells us that the group is notable, well-known and with significant support. It appears the ruling body is really beginning to feel the effects of its alienation from the populace!
I roll 2D to determine the structure of Amon Assemon’s representative authority. The resultant 3 gets Amon Assemon an elite council, which is to say a single legislative house, which has (1D comes up 3 for a two-way division of power, and another’s 5 is) executive and legislative power. I like the word “parliament”, so let’s call it the Parliament of Amon Assemon. A 6 on 2D means that a single ruler exerts judicial authority. It’s kind of like a prime minister, I suppose, but it’s not a minister at all ~ it’s a judge. I wonder who holds the barony of this moon? It just feels wrong for the Secretary (as I’ve decided to call them) to be ~ their job is mostly to ensure consistency in Parliamentary decisions, not to initiate or lead.
We roll 1D again to get an idea of the movement for direct democratic processes. It’s a pretty radical movement ~ their goal is for everyone to make every decision (I rolled a 6). Most likely, this is a technological libertarianism. The only way it makes sense for all citizens to be able to vote on everything is with advanced computer and communications technology. I suppose we should name these insurgents, so let’s roll the dWikipedia . . . the Assemonite Twin Party. I’m going to interpret that as confirmation of the technofetishism of the group ~ they advocate using a personal assistant AI, specifically the product called a Twin, to replicate a citizen’s beliefs, perspectives, and concerns and automate the direct democracy for which they argue. It remains to be seen if they’ve sold out to the corporation that produces the Twin, whether simple sponsorship or being an astroturfed front.
What about the religious attitude of the Assemonites? Let’s roll for the atheist/agnostic/non-religious population first, to allow it the greatest possible range of proportions. Rolling 1d100, I get 59%. 5227 people on Amon Assemon don’t identify strongly with any particular religion. That’s almost twice the percentage as on Ishee itself! I feel like the Radical Fairyness of this moon is slipping away, and I’m starting to see more of the technolibertarian Googlers I at one point liked to party with ~ the apotheosis of Enlightenment ideals grown bloated with a steady diet of science fiction and economic privilege, with a large emphasis on logic and reason over all. I still have a few friends from those times, so if any of them are reading, I wanna tell them that there’s a reason they’re still in my life ~ I found good people in that group, too. Very good people.
ANYWAY: We also have a bunch of already created religions that might have adherents on Amon Assemon. My solution is to roll a d16 for each religion (which I can do with random.org), and if the result is equal to or less than the “Population digit” of the religion, than there are members present. The Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners, for example, has trillions of worshipers. If the d16 roll comes up 12 or less, then there are Listeners here. Unsurprisingly, there are, as the 4 tells us. The Open and Assistive Galactic Rite of Rose Brotherhood needs a 10, but I rolled a 16! The Clarencian Unit of Monastic Rose Brothers has a 50-50 chance, and 15 > 8, so no Science-Monks either. 2 is less than Azeyrenawt’s 7, so they exist here, even as a 13 forbids any members of the Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (which is kind of strange, actually). Finally, although 14 has a 4, it is still too large for there to be any members of Our Lord’s Militant Mellis Church.
Rolling 1d41 to see how many Assemonites ascribe to the Liberty Fellowship, I get 31%, so there are an awful lot of Listeners on this moon. That leaves 1d10 for Azeyrenawt, which comes up 4.
Next week, we’ll start filling up those last six percent with new religions! Woohoo!
Religious landscape of Amon Assemon:
5227 sophonts (59%) atheist/agnostic/non-religious
2747 sophonts (31%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners
354 humans (4%) Azyeyrenawt
I roll 2D to determine the structure of Amon Assemon’s representative authority. The resultant 3 gets Amon Assemon an elite council, which is to say a single legislative house, which has (1D comes up 3 for a two-way division of power, and another’s 5 is) executive and legislative power. I like the word “parliament”, so let’s call it the Parliament of Amon Assemon. A 6 on 2D means that a single ruler exerts judicial authority. It’s kind of like a prime minister, I suppose, but it’s not a minister at all ~ it’s a judge. I wonder who holds the barony of this moon? It just feels wrong for the Secretary (as I’ve decided to call them) to be ~ their job is mostly to ensure consistency in Parliamentary decisions, not to initiate or lead.
We roll 1D again to get an idea of the movement for direct democratic processes. It’s a pretty radical movement ~ their goal is for everyone to make every decision (I rolled a 6). Most likely, this is a technological libertarianism. The only way it makes sense for all citizens to be able to vote on everything is with advanced computer and communications technology. I suppose we should name these insurgents, so let’s roll the dWikipedia . . . the Assemonite Twin Party. I’m going to interpret that as confirmation of the technofetishism of the group ~ they advocate using a personal assistant AI, specifically the product called a Twin, to replicate a citizen’s beliefs, perspectives, and concerns and automate the direct democracy for which they argue. It remains to be seen if they’ve sold out to the corporation that produces the Twin, whether simple sponsorship or being an astroturfed front.
What about the religious attitude of the Assemonites? Let’s roll for the atheist/agnostic/non-religious population first, to allow it the greatest possible range of proportions. Rolling 1d100, I get 59%. 5227 people on Amon Assemon don’t identify strongly with any particular religion. That’s almost twice the percentage as on Ishee itself! I feel like the Radical Fairyness of this moon is slipping away, and I’m starting to see more of the technolibertarian Googlers I at one point liked to party with ~ the apotheosis of Enlightenment ideals grown bloated with a steady diet of science fiction and economic privilege, with a large emphasis on logic and reason over all. I still have a few friends from those times, so if any of them are reading, I wanna tell them that there’s a reason they’re still in my life ~ I found good people in that group, too. Very good people.
ANYWAY: We also have a bunch of already created religions that might have adherents on Amon Assemon. My solution is to roll a d16 for each religion (which I can do with random.org), and if the result is equal to or less than the “Population digit” of the religion, than there are members present. The Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners, for example, has trillions of worshipers. If the d16 roll comes up 12 or less, then there are Listeners here. Unsurprisingly, there are, as the 4 tells us. The Open and Assistive Galactic Rite of Rose Brotherhood needs a 10, but I rolled a 16! The Clarencian Unit of Monastic Rose Brothers has a 50-50 chance, and 15 > 8, so no Science-Monks either. 2 is less than Azeyrenawt’s 7, so they exist here, even as a 13 forbids any members of the Beaumont Cosmological Computing System (which is kind of strange, actually). Finally, although 14 has a 4, it is still too large for there to be any members of Our Lord’s Militant Mellis Church.
Rolling 1d41 to see how many Assemonites ascribe to the Liberty Fellowship, I get 31%, so there are an awful lot of Listeners on this moon. That leaves 1d10 for Azeyrenawt, which comes up 4.
Next week, we’ll start filling up those last six percent with new religions! Woohoo!
Religious landscape of Amon Assemon:
5227 sophonts (59%) atheist/agnostic/non-religious
2747 sophonts (31%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners
354 humans (4%) Azyeyrenawt
Sunday, November 11, 2018
Mythopoetic verisimilitude is a virtue, you know (Design Domingo #21)
Fashion: Dwarfs working in the tunnels and mines and in the workshops commonly wear white shirts of cave-spider silk below their candled helmets, whose hard-earned immaculate brightness is interrupted only by green suspenders made of a thicker version of the same fabric. Those suspenders, in turn, hold up most dwarf’s most prized family heirloom: lederhosen made of expensive, imported deer leather which makes the pants soft and light but very tearproof. The expense and durability of these lederhosen means they are bequeathed from one generation to the next. As work pants, they are equipped with two side pockets, one hip pocket, one knife pocket, and a drop front to allow certain bodily functions to be more easily performed. Stockings stretch from these shorts, over the knee, and into thick-soled leather boots with a steel toe. Thick aprons of wool or, for the rich or those who need it, the same leather mark those who are doing more dangerous work, such as smithing.
When engaging in more domestic work, dwarfs tend toward keeping the shirt, but covering it only with a long hooded stole of gnomish-made goat wool that just hangs wide front and back without connecting on the sides. The two front flaps do connect in front, however, low, about at the dwarf’s belly button, to form a sort of apron. Three great big pockets wait at about the dwarf’s hips to help their work. Unless their boots are needed, domestic dwarfs tend to walk in their bare feet.
Dwarfs don’t dress up much for fancy occasions, and when they do, they mostly just add embroidery and tooling and brighter colors to the same garments and oftenm make those garments out of finer textiles. Dwarfin jewelry tends to the chunky and the big, and is most often carved and polished from granite or marble or any number of precious stones. Because dwarfs tend not to value gems and other crystals aesthetically, they export many of the ones they find to Sardis and Galatia. This means most people in the wider Empire tend to see rich dwarf gem merchants, leading to a stereotype of dwarfs as rich.
Art & Aesthetics: Dwarfs gravitate to earthy tones of greys and browns in a variety of shades, accented with flashes of much more brilliant colors usually made from ground precious stones. They quite enjoy little flashes of hues that remind them of the surface world (blues, yellows, greens) from which they have retreated amidst colors much more representative of their current environment. Bright reds and light purples are rare in dwarfin aesthetics, and white is treated mostly as a utilitarian color to increase visibility in often-dark tunnels. Dwarfin lines and shapes tend toward straight lines and sharp corners. The occasional curve is long and languid, dripping like stalactites or sloping around like the tunneled halls.
Dwarfin art focuses on well-made tools more than anything else, prizing efficiency as a marker of beauty though modest adornment is also often added. Large sculpture is often discarded in favor of grand architecture, but most dwarfs work small rocks into a variety of forms as a way to keep their hands busy and entertain themselves in idle moments, much like forest-folk tend to whittle. Two-dimensional art is largely restricted to gorgeous mosaics and friezes that cover the grand halls of the dwarfs. By far, the most famous dwarfin artform in the rest of the empire is their metal furniture-making, sturdy, perfectly proportioned, and starkly gorgeous.
Music is vital to dwarfin culture. Songs tend toward the long and the sonorous, often backed by throat-singing, all intended take the greatest possible advantage of their subterranean acoustics. Opera is the greatest dwarfin contribution to Imperial performing arts, originating as work-songs to the steady clanging beat of tools on stone. Instruments similar to billabongs are used sometimes to play a melody behind both vocals and percussion. To imagine dwarfin music, combine the musicalities of Gregorian chants and 1930s chain-gang worksongs, backed with droning. King d’Holbach brought dwarfin opera to Galatia, where it began to gain more complicated melodies and harmonies, and from there to Sardis and Penguern who added their own bombastic and delicate touches, respectively, which have fed back into the most complicated Galatian style of opera.
Cuisine: Dwarfs usually braise their meat; fried dishes also exist, but these recipes usually originate from Sardis and Galatia. One Worthese specialty is Hrewashtarber (sour roast), involving marinating bat meat in a myungja (mushroom wine vinegar) mixture over several days. A long tradition of sausage-making exists in Worth; more than 1,500 different types of sausage (Worthese: karal) are made. Most karal is made with natural casings of goat intestines, acquired rather dearly from the gnomes. Among the most popular and most common are tarbkaral, usually made of ground cave shrimp and spices, the Sardikaral (Sardin), which may be bat or salamander and is smoked and fully cooked in a water bath, and myelshkaral (slime sausage) or zrauschkaral (black sausage) made from a particular type of cave slime. There are many regional specialties, such as the Kirchen sieukaral (Kirch white sausage) made from crab or the ryukaral (depending on region, either a steamed crawfish sausage or a version of the tarbkaral, sliced and spiced with a fermented fish sauce) popular in the city of Worth itself.
Living underground as they do, dwarfs don’t get much plant matter in their diet. Far and away, however, the two most common are carrot and white asparagus. The latter is simply considered delicious and oft purchased from the gnomes who grow it on the slopes of the mountains where the dwarfs live. The former, however, is mostly consumed like coffee, with the carrots being roasted and dried, then ground and steeped in water to create a hot drink called grafhul.
When engaging in more domestic work, dwarfs tend toward keeping the shirt, but covering it only with a long hooded stole of gnomish-made goat wool that just hangs wide front and back without connecting on the sides. The two front flaps do connect in front, however, low, about at the dwarf’s belly button, to form a sort of apron. Three great big pockets wait at about the dwarf’s hips to help their work. Unless their boots are needed, domestic dwarfs tend to walk in their bare feet.
Dwarfs don’t dress up much for fancy occasions, and when they do, they mostly just add embroidery and tooling and brighter colors to the same garments and oftenm make those garments out of finer textiles. Dwarfin jewelry tends to the chunky and the big, and is most often carved and polished from granite or marble or any number of precious stones. Because dwarfs tend not to value gems and other crystals aesthetically, they export many of the ones they find to Sardis and Galatia. This means most people in the wider Empire tend to see rich dwarf gem merchants, leading to a stereotype of dwarfs as rich.
Art & Aesthetics: Dwarfs gravitate to earthy tones of greys and browns in a variety of shades, accented with flashes of much more brilliant colors usually made from ground precious stones. They quite enjoy little flashes of hues that remind them of the surface world (blues, yellows, greens) from which they have retreated amidst colors much more representative of their current environment. Bright reds and light purples are rare in dwarfin aesthetics, and white is treated mostly as a utilitarian color to increase visibility in often-dark tunnels. Dwarfin lines and shapes tend toward straight lines and sharp corners. The occasional curve is long and languid, dripping like stalactites or sloping around like the tunneled halls.
Dwarfin art focuses on well-made tools more than anything else, prizing efficiency as a marker of beauty though modest adornment is also often added. Large sculpture is often discarded in favor of grand architecture, but most dwarfs work small rocks into a variety of forms as a way to keep their hands busy and entertain themselves in idle moments, much like forest-folk tend to whittle. Two-dimensional art is largely restricted to gorgeous mosaics and friezes that cover the grand halls of the dwarfs. By far, the most famous dwarfin artform in the rest of the empire is their metal furniture-making, sturdy, perfectly proportioned, and starkly gorgeous.
Music is vital to dwarfin culture. Songs tend toward the long and the sonorous, often backed by throat-singing, all intended take the greatest possible advantage of their subterranean acoustics. Opera is the greatest dwarfin contribution to Imperial performing arts, originating as work-songs to the steady clanging beat of tools on stone. Instruments similar to billabongs are used sometimes to play a melody behind both vocals and percussion. To imagine dwarfin music, combine the musicalities of Gregorian chants and 1930s chain-gang worksongs, backed with droning. King d’Holbach brought dwarfin opera to Galatia, where it began to gain more complicated melodies and harmonies, and from there to Sardis and Penguern who added their own bombastic and delicate touches, respectively, which have fed back into the most complicated Galatian style of opera.
Cuisine: Dwarfs usually braise their meat; fried dishes also exist, but these recipes usually originate from Sardis and Galatia. One Worthese specialty is Hrewashtarber (sour roast), involving marinating bat meat in a myungja (mushroom wine vinegar) mixture over several days. A long tradition of sausage-making exists in Worth; more than 1,500 different types of sausage (Worthese: karal) are made. Most karal is made with natural casings of goat intestines, acquired rather dearly from the gnomes. Among the most popular and most common are tarbkaral, usually made of ground cave shrimp and spices, the Sardikaral (Sardin), which may be bat or salamander and is smoked and fully cooked in a water bath, and myelshkaral (slime sausage) or zrauschkaral (black sausage) made from a particular type of cave slime. There are many regional specialties, such as the Kirchen sieukaral (Kirch white sausage) made from crab or the ryukaral (depending on region, either a steamed crawfish sausage or a version of the tarbkaral, sliced and spiced with a fermented fish sauce) popular in the city of Worth itself.
Living underground as they do, dwarfs don’t get much plant matter in their diet. Far and away, however, the two most common are carrot and white asparagus. The latter is simply considered delicious and oft purchased from the gnomes who grow it on the slopes of the mountains where the dwarfs live. The former, however, is mostly consumed like coffee, with the carrots being roasted and dried, then ground and steeped in water to create a hot drink called grafhul.
Friday, November 9, 2018
Finishing off the verbs. Oh, and also pronouns (Fantasy Friday #21)
gihginkho’ /gɪ̃˨gĩ˦nq͡χɔ̃˞ʔ/ “don’t tell him/her/it!”
gih- (pronomial prefix) imperative: “you—him/her/it”
gin (verb) “tell”
-kho’ (rover suffix) “don’t!”
choginkho’choygh /t͡ʃɔ̃˞gĩ˦nq͡χɔ̃˞ʔt͡ʃõĩɣ/ “if you won’t tell me”; “if you refuse to tell me”
cho- (pronomial prefix) “you—me”
gin (verb) “tell”
-kho’ (rover suffix) “won’t”
-choygh (syntactic suffix) “if”
qihnoyrtoyrihtkho’ /xɪ̃˨nõĩrtʰõĩrɪ̃˨tʰq͡χɔ̃˞ʔ/ “don’t be afraid to kill me!”
qih- (pronomial prefix) imperative: “you—me”
noyrtoy (verb) kill
-riht (volitive suffix)
-kho’ (rover suffix) “don’t!”
logtoyqi’moqliq /lɔ̃˞gtʰõĩxĩ˦ʔmɔ̃˞xlĩ˦x/ “it can destroy them” “it can cause them to undo their form”
∅ (pronomial prefix) “it—them”
logtoy (verb) “take form”
-qi’ (rover suffix) undo
-moq (causative suffix) “cause”
-liq (potentive suffix) “can; able”
nihginqi’choygh /nɪ̃˨gĩ˦nxĩ˦ʔt͡ʃõĩɣ/ “if you say the wrong thing”
nih- (pronomial prefix) “you”
gin (verb) “say”
-qi’ (rover suffix) undo
-choygh (syntactic suffix) “if”
nihginnuh’choygh /nɪ̃˨gĩ˦nːʌ̃˨ʔt͡ʃõĩɣ/ “if you don’t speak”
nih- (pronomial prefix) “you”
gin (verb) “say”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
-choygh (syntactic suffix) “if”
soyltoqi’ /ʂõĩltʰɔ̃˞xĩ˦ʔ/ “it is unfortunate” (suggests a turn of luck from good to bad)
∅ (pronomial prefix) “it—them”
soylto (verb) “be lucky; be fortunate”
-qi’ (rover suffix) undo
It is interesting that -qi’ always occurs right after the verb. It is not known why orc grammarians insist on calling it a rover. It was felt best not to argue with orc tradition, however, so -qi’ is here classified as a rover.
gihnoliquoy’ /gɪ̃˨nɔ̃˞lĩ˦kʷõĩʔ/ “study him/her/it well”
gih- (pronomial prefix) imperative: “you—him/her/it”
noli (verb) “study”
-quoy’ (rover suffix) emphatic
noynoyrtoyquoy’nuh’ /nõĩnõĩrtʰõĩkʷõĩʔnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “they have not finished us off”
noy- (pronomial prefix) “they—us”
noyrtoy (verb) “kill”
-quoy’ (rover suffix) emphatic
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
tihnoyrtoyrihtnuh’quoy’ /tʰɪ̃˨nõĩrtʰõĩrɪ̃˨tʰnʌ̃˨ʔkʷõĩʔ/ “we are NOT afraid to kill you” (might be used after an enemy challenged the bravery of the speaker)
tihnoyrtoyrightquoy’nuh’ /tʰɪ̃˨nõĩrtʰõĩrɪ̃˨tʰkʷõĩʔnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “we are not AFRAID to kill you” (might be followed by an explanation such as, “We are not willing to kill you because we require your services.”)
tihnoyrtoyquoy’rihtnuh’ /tʰɪ̃˨nõĩrtʰõĩkʷõĩʔrɪ̃˨tʰnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “we are not afraid to KILL you” (used to emphasize killing, as opposed to some other form of punishment)
tih- (pronomial prefix) “we—you”
noyrtoy (verb) “kill”
-riht (volitive suffix) “afraid”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
-quoy’ (rover suffix) emphatic
As you may have noticed, there are no adjectives as such in Orcish. Those notions expressed as adjectives in English (such as “big” “tired”) are expressed by verbs in Orcish (“be big” “be tired”). A verb expressing a state or quality can be used immediately following a noun to modify that noun.
rinoy luhnkqoy /rĩ˦nõĩlʌ̃˨ᵑkxõĩ/ “tired child”
rinoy “child”
luhnkqoy “tired”
girquoymuhg tuhroy /gĩ˦rkʷõĩmʌ̃˨gtʰʌ̃˨rõĩ/ “big ships”
girquoymuhg “ships; vessels”
tuhroy “be big”
The rover suffix -quoy’ (emphatic) may follow verbs functioning adjectivally. In this usage, it is usually translated “very.’ Many other verb suffixes can be used similarly.
girquoymuhg tuhroyquoy’ /gĩ˦rkʷõĩmʌ̃˨gtʰʌ̃˨rõĩkʷõĩʔ/ “very big ships”
oyloy soylioynuh’quoy’ /õĩlõĩʂõĩlĩ˦õĩnʌ̃˨ʔkʷõĩʔ/ “a very unimportant day”
tirisoy /tʰĩ˦rĩ˦ʂõĩ/: (verb) to be fine; to be acute; to be piercing
tilwoy /tʰĩ˦lwõĩ/: (verb) to be late; to be last
toy /tʰõĩ/: (noun) they; them (emphatic 3rd person plural inanimate pronoun)
tuhqui /tʰʌ̃˨kʷĩ˦/: (noun) you; thou; thee (emphatic 2nd person intimate/familiar pronoun)
ingoy /ĩ˦ŋõĩ/: (noun) top; highest point (only applied to shapes pointing upwards; refers primarily to position and could be used of tops relatively broad
ingwi /ĩ˦ŋwĩ˦/: (noun) we; thou and I (emphatic 1st person dual inclusive pronoun)
isto /ĩ˦ʂtʰɔ̃˞/: (noun) even the two of them (emphatic 3rd person dual pronoun; used for both animate and inanimate)
issi /ĩ˦ʂːĩ˦/: (noun) he; she; it; they; ze (etc.) (emphatic 3rd person singular animate pronoun)
inkki /ĩ˦ᵑkːĩ˦/: (noun) we (emphatic 1st person plural exclusive pronoun)
inti /ĩ˦ntʰĩ˦/: (noun) they (emphatic 3rd person plural animate pronoun)
inqui /ĩ˦nkʷĩ˦/: (noun) I, too (emphatic independent 1st person singular pronoun)
ilqui /ĩ˦lkʷĩ˦/: (noun) even thou (emphatic 2nd person singular pronoun)
ilquoy /ĩ˦lkʷõĩ/: (verb) to be all; to be whole; to be each; to be every; to be all of a particular group of things; (noun) all, the whole
ilgi /ĩ˦lgĩ˦/: (noun) y’all (emphatic 2nd person plural familiar pronoun)
-quoy’ /.kʷõĩʔ/: (rover suffix) emphatic; emphasizes or affirms whatever immediately precedes it
sintoy /ʂĩ˦ntʰõĩ/: (verb) to be short
soy /ʂõĩ/: (noun) it (emphatic 3rd person singular inanimate pronoun)
soynquoy /ʂõĩnkʷõĩ/: (verb) to be lovely; to be fair; to be beautiful (referring to beauty that is due to lack of fault, or blemish)
soylin /ʂõĩlĩ˦n/: (verb) to be happy; to be powerful
soyllioy /ʂõĩlːĩ˦õĩ/: (verb) to be important; to be of the moment
-qi’ /.xĩ˦ʔ/: (rover suffix) undo (implies not merely that something is not done, but that there is a change of state ~ something that was previously done is now undone; it is close to the English prefixes “mis-”, “de-”, “dis-”, as in “misunderstand”, “demystify”, “disentangle”); also used if something is done wrongly.
khirinkoy /q͡χĩ˦rĩ˦ᵑkõĩ/: (verb) to be ready to hand; to be (quickly) available
-kho’ /.q͡χɔ̃˞ʔ/: (rover suffix) don’t!, won’t (used in imperatives and to denote refusal) (position does not change: it occurs last, unless followed by a syntactic suffix; considered a rover because it is the imperative counterpart to -nuh’)
khoyni /q͡χõĩnĩ˦/: (verb) to be (cloud-)white
nki /ᵑkĩ˦/: (noun) we; us (emphatic 1st person plural exclusive pronoun)
nkit /ᵑkĩ˦/: (noun) we two; us two (emphatic 1st person dual exclusive pronoun)
nko /ᵑkɔ̃˞/: (noun) one; someone; anyone (indefinite pronoun)
nkoroy /ᵑkɔ̃˞rõĩ/: (verb) to be black
nkoy /ᵑkõĩ/: (noun) something, a thing (neuter personal pronoun)
nkwinqui /ᵑkwĩ˦nkʷĩ˦/: (verb) to be sorry; to weep
girquoy /gĩ˦rkʷõĩ/: (noun) a (sharp-prowed) ship
nowgoy /naugõĩ/: (verb) to be hard; to be hardened; to be stunted; to be shortened; to be dwarf(ed) (applied to things that though in themselves full-grown are smaller or shorter than their kind, and are hard, twisted or ill-shapen; (noun) dwarf
oyrinquoy /õĩrĩ˦nkʷõĩ/: (verb) to be in or related to the morning; to be early
rqui /r̩̩kʷĩ˦/: (noun) other person; pronoun for a 3rd person entering account who is not subject of the original verb (may then also be used as subject to in a following sentence)
royr /rõĩr/: (verb) to be local; to be near; to be nearby
rroyioy /rːõĩ˦ːõĩ/: (verb) to be easy
raigoy /raigõĩ/: (verb) to be crooked; to be bent; to be wrong
lqui /l̩kʷĩ˦/: (noun) thou/thee; you (emphatic 2nd person singular formal/polite pronoun)
loytin /lõĩtʰĩ˦n/: (verb) to be open; to be free; to be cleared (of land) (used to speak of freedom of movement, of things not encumbered with obstacles)
loytoy /lõĩtʰõĩ/: (verb) to be open; to be not closed
luhnkqoy /lʌ̃˨ᵑkxõĩ/: (verb) to be tired; to be weary
gih- (pronomial prefix) imperative: “you—him/her/it”
gin (verb) “tell”
-kho’ (rover suffix) “don’t!”
choginkho’choygh /t͡ʃɔ̃˞gĩ˦nq͡χɔ̃˞ʔt͡ʃõĩɣ/ “if you won’t tell me”; “if you refuse to tell me”
cho- (pronomial prefix) “you—me”
gin (verb) “tell”
-kho’ (rover suffix) “won’t”
-choygh (syntactic suffix) “if”
qihnoyrtoyrihtkho’ /xɪ̃˨nõĩrtʰõĩrɪ̃˨tʰq͡χɔ̃˞ʔ/ “don’t be afraid to kill me!”
qih- (pronomial prefix) imperative: “you—me”
noyrtoy (verb) kill
-riht (volitive suffix)
-kho’ (rover suffix) “don’t!”
logtoyqi’moqliq /lɔ̃˞gtʰõĩxĩ˦ʔmɔ̃˞xlĩ˦x/ “it can destroy them” “it can cause them to undo their form”
∅ (pronomial prefix) “it—them”
logtoy (verb) “take form”
-qi’ (rover suffix) undo
-moq (causative suffix) “cause”
-liq (potentive suffix) “can; able”
nihginqi’choygh /nɪ̃˨gĩ˦nxĩ˦ʔt͡ʃõĩɣ/ “if you say the wrong thing”
nih- (pronomial prefix) “you”
gin (verb) “say”
-qi’ (rover suffix) undo
-choygh (syntactic suffix) “if”
nihginnuh’choygh /nɪ̃˨gĩ˦nːʌ̃˨ʔt͡ʃõĩɣ/ “if you don’t speak”
nih- (pronomial prefix) “you”
gin (verb) “say”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
-choygh (syntactic suffix) “if”
soyltoqi’ /ʂõĩltʰɔ̃˞xĩ˦ʔ/ “it is unfortunate” (suggests a turn of luck from good to bad)
∅ (pronomial prefix) “it—them”
soylto (verb) “be lucky; be fortunate”
-qi’ (rover suffix) undo
It is interesting that -qi’ always occurs right after the verb. It is not known why orc grammarians insist on calling it a rover. It was felt best not to argue with orc tradition, however, so -qi’ is here classified as a rover.
gihnoliquoy’ /gɪ̃˨nɔ̃˞lĩ˦kʷõĩʔ/ “study him/her/it well”
gih- (pronomial prefix) imperative: “you—him/her/it”
noli (verb) “study”
-quoy’ (rover suffix) emphatic
noynoyrtoyquoy’nuh’ /nõĩnõĩrtʰõĩkʷõĩʔnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “they have not finished us off”
noy- (pronomial prefix) “they—us”
noyrtoy (verb) “kill”
-quoy’ (rover suffix) emphatic
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
tihnoyrtoyrihtnuh’quoy’ /tʰɪ̃˨nõĩrtʰõĩrɪ̃˨tʰnʌ̃˨ʔkʷõĩʔ/ “we are NOT afraid to kill you” (might be used after an enemy challenged the bravery of the speaker)
tihnoyrtoyrightquoy’nuh’ /tʰɪ̃˨nõĩrtʰõĩrɪ̃˨tʰkʷõĩʔnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “we are not AFRAID to kill you” (might be followed by an explanation such as, “We are not willing to kill you because we require your services.”)
tihnoyrtoyquoy’rihtnuh’ /tʰɪ̃˨nõĩrtʰõĩkʷõĩʔrɪ̃˨tʰnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “we are not afraid to KILL you” (used to emphasize killing, as opposed to some other form of punishment)
tih- (pronomial prefix) “we—you”
noyrtoy (verb) “kill”
-riht (volitive suffix) “afraid”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
-quoy’ (rover suffix) emphatic
As you may have noticed, there are no adjectives as such in Orcish. Those notions expressed as adjectives in English (such as “big” “tired”) are expressed by verbs in Orcish (“be big” “be tired”). A verb expressing a state or quality can be used immediately following a noun to modify that noun.
rinoy luhnkqoy /rĩ˦nõĩlʌ̃˨ᵑkxõĩ/ “tired child”
rinoy “child”
luhnkqoy “tired”
girquoymuhg tuhroy /gĩ˦rkʷõĩmʌ̃˨gtʰʌ̃˨rõĩ/ “big ships”
girquoymuhg “ships; vessels”
tuhroy “be big”
The rover suffix -quoy’ (emphatic) may follow verbs functioning adjectivally. In this usage, it is usually translated “very.’ Many other verb suffixes can be used similarly.
girquoymuhg tuhroyquoy’ /gĩ˦rkʷõĩmʌ̃˨gtʰʌ̃˨rõĩkʷõĩʔ/ “very big ships”
oyloy soylioynuh’quoy’ /õĩlõĩʂõĩlĩ˦õĩnʌ̃˨ʔkʷõĩʔ/ “a very unimportant day”
tirisoy /tʰĩ˦rĩ˦ʂõĩ/: (verb) to be fine; to be acute; to be piercing
tilwoy /tʰĩ˦lwõĩ/: (verb) to be late; to be last
toy /tʰõĩ/: (noun) they; them (emphatic 3rd person plural inanimate pronoun)
tuhqui /tʰʌ̃˨kʷĩ˦/: (noun) you; thou; thee (emphatic 2nd person intimate/familiar pronoun)
ingoy /ĩ˦ŋõĩ/: (noun) top; highest point (only applied to shapes pointing upwards; refers primarily to position and could be used of tops relatively broad
ingwi /ĩ˦ŋwĩ˦/: (noun) we; thou and I (emphatic 1st person dual inclusive pronoun)
isto /ĩ˦ʂtʰɔ̃˞/: (noun) even the two of them (emphatic 3rd person dual pronoun; used for both animate and inanimate)
issi /ĩ˦ʂːĩ˦/: (noun) he; she; it; they; ze (etc.) (emphatic 3rd person singular animate pronoun)
inkki /ĩ˦ᵑkːĩ˦/: (noun) we (emphatic 1st person plural exclusive pronoun)
inti /ĩ˦ntʰĩ˦/: (noun) they (emphatic 3rd person plural animate pronoun)
inqui /ĩ˦nkʷĩ˦/: (noun) I, too (emphatic independent 1st person singular pronoun)
ilqui /ĩ˦lkʷĩ˦/: (noun) even thou (emphatic 2nd person singular pronoun)
ilquoy /ĩ˦lkʷõĩ/: (verb) to be all; to be whole; to be each; to be every; to be all of a particular group of things; (noun) all, the whole
ilgi /ĩ˦lgĩ˦/: (noun) y’all (emphatic 2nd person plural familiar pronoun)
-quoy’ /.kʷõĩʔ/: (rover suffix) emphatic; emphasizes or affirms whatever immediately precedes it
sintoy /ʂĩ˦ntʰõĩ/: (verb) to be short
soy /ʂõĩ/: (noun) it (emphatic 3rd person singular inanimate pronoun)
soynquoy /ʂõĩnkʷõĩ/: (verb) to be lovely; to be fair; to be beautiful (referring to beauty that is due to lack of fault, or blemish)
soylin /ʂõĩlĩ˦n/: (verb) to be happy; to be powerful
soyllioy /ʂõĩlːĩ˦õĩ/: (verb) to be important; to be of the moment
-qi’ /.xĩ˦ʔ/: (rover suffix) undo (implies not merely that something is not done, but that there is a change of state ~ something that was previously done is now undone; it is close to the English prefixes “mis-”, “de-”, “dis-”, as in “misunderstand”, “demystify”, “disentangle”); also used if something is done wrongly.
khirinkoy /q͡χĩ˦rĩ˦ᵑkõĩ/: (verb) to be ready to hand; to be (quickly) available
-kho’ /.q͡χɔ̃˞ʔ/: (rover suffix) don’t!, won’t (used in imperatives and to denote refusal) (position does not change: it occurs last, unless followed by a syntactic suffix; considered a rover because it is the imperative counterpart to -nuh’)
khoyni /q͡χõĩnĩ˦/: (verb) to be (cloud-)white
nki /ᵑkĩ˦/: (noun) we; us (emphatic 1st person plural exclusive pronoun)
nkit /ᵑkĩ˦/: (noun) we two; us two (emphatic 1st person dual exclusive pronoun)
nko /ᵑkɔ̃˞/: (noun) one; someone; anyone (indefinite pronoun)
nkoroy /ᵑkɔ̃˞rõĩ/: (verb) to be black
nkoy /ᵑkõĩ/: (noun) something, a thing (neuter personal pronoun)
nkwinqui /ᵑkwĩ˦nkʷĩ˦/: (verb) to be sorry; to weep
girquoy /gĩ˦rkʷõĩ/: (noun) a (sharp-prowed) ship
nowgoy /naugõĩ/: (verb) to be hard; to be hardened; to be stunted; to be shortened; to be dwarf(ed) (applied to things that though in themselves full-grown are smaller or shorter than their kind, and are hard, twisted or ill-shapen; (noun) dwarf
oyrinquoy /õĩrĩ˦nkʷõĩ/: (verb) to be in or related to the morning; to be early
rqui /r̩̩kʷĩ˦/: (noun) other person; pronoun for a 3rd person entering account who is not subject of the original verb (may then also be used as subject to in a following sentence)
royr /rõĩr/: (verb) to be local; to be near; to be nearby
rroyioy /rːõĩ˦ːõĩ/: (verb) to be easy
raigoy /raigõĩ/: (verb) to be crooked; to be bent; to be wrong
lqui /l̩kʷĩ˦/: (noun) thou/thee; you (emphatic 2nd person singular formal/polite pronoun)
loytin /lõĩtʰĩ˦n/: (verb) to be open; to be free; to be cleared (of land) (used to speak of freedom of movement, of things not encumbered with obstacles)
loytoy /lõĩtʰõĩ/: (verb) to be open; to be not closed
luhnkqoy /lʌ̃˨ᵑkxõĩ/: (verb) to be tired; to be weary
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Allow me to introduce you to Amon Assemon (Traveller Tuesday #20)
Now let’s build Ishee’s first and closest moon, which already has a name: Amon Assemon. She’s a handball player from Côte d'Ivoire, but we’re right now more concerned with its population. My Traveller universe models its system-level sociopolitics not on mid-century space opera, with one inhabite dplanet nestled amongst all the empty ones, but on 2000s transhumanist science fiction. What that means is that I want a rather populated star system, but one still focused on the mainworld as the center of population, technology, and culture. Accordingly, I apply a -1 DM to Population for every half-orbit away from the mainworld the planet is. Well, half-orbit is the wrong word: the mainworld’s moons get -1, the world(s) one orbit away get -2 and their moons get -3, world(s) two orbits away get a -4 and their moons a -5, etc.
So Amon Assemon rolls 2d6-3 for Population. A 3 gives the moon thousands of people living on it. (bUWP α-3D-0704-0A (α Greve-Eau Pleine-Bishop Scheumack-Ishee-Amon Assemon)/????3??-?/?/??/Em). Let’s get more specific . . . and random.org says that 8860 people live here. That’s about 0.055% of Ishee’s population, or one Assemonite for abiout every 1818 Isheeans. Unlike its big brother, there’s a chance Amon Assemon’s population all live in a single urban area. A 50-50 chance, actually ~ however, a 1 is not greater than 3, so they do not. In fact, because the population is so small, there are no cities at all thanks to this roll failing. The 8860 Assemonites live scattered across the surface of the moon in isolated single-family homes. We won’t know for a long time yet, but I imagine them mining or doing things like moisture farming (and looking not unlike a more airtight version of where Luke grew up, too).
How do those almost 10,000 people live? 1D3 tells us that there is but a single notable Cultural Difference. A 44 on the follow-up D66 gives that difference as an Unusual Custom: Lifecycle. This is a broad one, as it can cover killing elders, immortality by means of anagathic (anti-aging) drugs, a reliance on cloning as the sole means of reproduction, or family structures based on something other than reproductive lineage (like, say, children being raised by the state). As a pansexual submissive trans genderqueer, I have a vested interest in imagining futures with areas in which my familial structures are the norm. Such places have existed in the past (certain pirate cultures are the first to come to mind, various queer communes throughout the last two hundred years, Christian monasteries, even cowboy culture) and also now (I used to live at one in Oregon), but those always exist as interruptions in a heteronormative culture. Those interruptions are necessary and important, but are only effective if we can craft visions of what it might look like for us to exist outside of that culture.
To be clear: queers breed. A lot, actually. And most, if not all, of the queer mothers, fathers, and other-gender parents I know personally are quite attached to remaining in their children’s lives. Duh.
Nonetheless, I think I’m going to use this Cultural Difference to make Amon Assemon a culture which has, for however long, been predominately queer. Same-sex relationships are the norm here, the kind of love people are socialized into, just as people in our culture are socialized into different-sex love. People on Amon Assemon come out as straight ~ no one has need of coming out as gay. I’m not yet decided if parenting here occurs through a variety of means or if Assemonite culture has its favorite method (cloning, surrogacy, paired relationships, etc.).
While there might not be all that many Cultural Differences, a roll of 1D6 tells us that there are no less than SIX significant cultures shaping Assemonite culture. I roll 1D6 6 times to determine the general type of each custom, getting 1, 1, 1, 1, 6, and 2. That’s four clothing-related customs, a food custom, and a miscellaneous. OK, so let’s start with clothing and fashion: the 4D66 that I roll come up 46, 42, 13, and 56. Some group wears unusual clothes, while another has unusual fingernails, a third uses unusual cosmetics, and a fourth accessorizes in unusual ways. I roll 1D6 four times to see which of these apply to everyone and which to particular groups. The only one which isn’t universal is the cosmetics ~ those are worn specifically by (1D66=34) religious figures.
OK, so I think this is the drag planet. Everyone on Amon Assemon wears greatly exaggerated clothing, usually that associated with the “other gender” in the galaxy as a whole. Workaday fashion here is almost costume, however, filled with power clashing, melodramatic lines, and sheer size. It’s also common for all Assemonites to pierce their fingernails, implanting rings or dangles or studs or pearls on each one. As for the unusual accessories, I’m going to steal a trick from Chip Delaney’s Tales of Neveryon and say that Assemonites have a custom of strapping large mirrors to their bellies as a standard accessory. I’m also going to grab from my favorite Mummy movie (and the hawttest person in the movie): no matter their religion, clergy on Amon Assemon are in the habit of using cosmetics and color to inscribe scripture, proverbs, and holy images across their face every morning. The more devout use other visible skin surfaces (like hands and knuckles, arms, legs) for the same purpose.
Another 1D66 gives us 46 for the unusual eating habit on this moon. That means that some or all of the Assemonites eat only at home. A 1 on 1D6 tells me that all of them do. This is a culture which sees eating as private, not to be done where others can see you. Is it because of their extravagant outfits, making them both more prone to messy eating and more scared of it? Finally, the miscellaneous custom. The 1D66 comes up 52, so air has some sort of unusual significance to . . . (1D6=1) everyone. Well, that seems obvious, doesn’t it? I mean, the moon is Size 0 so it’s pretty unlikely for it to have atmosphere, right? I’m not really sure what to do with this . . . . Maybe, Vegas-like, they keep the oxygen content of their artificial atmosphere higher than standard? No, it’s probably more like a custom to always have a certain, sizeable tank of air on you at all times. Decorating it, showing it off, or hiding it amongst your drag is one of the constant games in Assemonite culture, then.
Sunday, November 4, 2018
Dwarfs (Design Domingo #20)
Now that we’ve covered Virtues and Traumas, it’s time to start looking at how races work in Middens and Morals. Galatia has the same six base races as D&D: dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling, halfling, human, and orc. All of these races can interbreed, leading to a vast array of magical characters, but how to represent that mechanically is a conundrum for another time; right now we will only focus on the primary races. Many more sentient and PC-worthy beings roam these lands, of course, not to mention all those elsewhere in the world, but these are where we will start.
Dwarfs
Although it seems unlikely, dwarfs are considered Fair Folk, cousin to the Fey, and one of the original races born in Galatia. They are very closed about their culture and their knowledge, couldn’t care less about any of the other races, and will nonetheless occasionally trade with the surface dwellers for food and magical services. They have little use for man-made objects, but are nonetheless far more technologically advanced than humans may ever hope to be. Because of their inherently magical nature, dwarfs often have trouble channeling spells and therefore require outsiders to do their enchantments.
According to dwarfin legend, dwarfs are the children of one of deep Kellide’s schemes. Wishing that fiery Soleh would spend more than one night at a time in her stone bed, Kellide trapped him underground by means of cunning and clever tricks. There, she luxuriated with him in the sweetness of their respective loins. Dwarfs spilled from her womb as a result, dwarfs who began to talk with and sympathize with their father. They set to work inventing things to free him, and after many failed (and oft humorous) attempts, one invention showed promise. On the drawing board, anyway ~ volcanoes are notoriously difficult to test. But work it did, and Soleh was freed, and anger overtook him such that he was wroth against any reminder of his time in captivity. As these things too often go, the very children of his that saved him bore much of the brunt of this temper tantrum. After enough attacks and petty vengeances from their father, the dwarfs retreated under the mountains, telling their children to avoid and fear the sun and to mourn their lost relationship with it.
Two centuries ago, the Empire came to Worth. The daughter of Emeritus who had forced the Dalmatian queen Aloranis to his bridegroom’s bed in order to lay claim to her lands by Fey law sought now to make her name. Eliesia the Half-Elfin, she was called, and a simple war of conquest she fought. Her armies echoed through the tunnels in the peaks of the dwarfin lands. Contingents of the short Fair Folk formed bands of guerillas that used all their engineering tricks to defeat, deter, and kill the human soldiers, but most remained at their work. These latter would, without shift of countenance or indeed attention, simply turn from that work when necessary and treat the human before them as just another ore-vein that yielded to their picks and axes, and then return to work without missing more than a beat. It was perhaps this lack of coordination, or this lack of concern over the bloody arts, that gave the dwarfin realm of Worth the loss, and gave Galatia its final province. Matthieu d’Holbach, of the line of Metontas, was given the task of settling Worth and crushing resistance; he would go on to succeed Queen Eliesia and serve his time as King of the Galatian Empire.
While king, d’Holbach enlisted a sizeable workforce of military engineers, civil architects, and serfs to work alongside scores of dwarfin tunnelers, building a network across the empire of subterranean arteries beneath all of its highways and byways. This was, in truth, rather a genius bit of statecraft, as it not only made it easier for the Worthese to travel and spread across his domain, but it actually pulled many of them out into the greater world. Moreso, in doing it so, it put them in close contact with the other races of Galatia, breaking down barriers and easing tensions borne of such quick expansion ~ Galatia gained Dalmatia and Worth within two or three human generations (seems a lot to us, but imagine how short that is to the other races, who live two to seven times as long as us!).
Physical Description: Quite naturally, dwarfs are noticeably shorter than humans or elfs. Their dense, thickly-corded muscles ripple unseen under a thick layer of fat, like mountain stone beneath dozens of feet of snow, while blazingly yellow-blond hair waves in fair flickers from their head. Braiding these hairs is not in fashion, but that doesn’t mean dwarfs aren’t vain about them ~ brushing it out to glistening is an extended ritual on both ends of the day, and it is often arranged in any number of coiffures that somehow catch even the slight breezes of the underground and float hauntingly. This hair, in the same range of shades and hues and tints, carpets their bodies and their limbs. And their chins. Let’s get it settled now: all genders of dwarfs proudly wear thick, luxuriant, flowing beards, and they’re just as vain about their chin-hairs as their head-hairs. Dwarfin eyes are a warm yellow flecked with white and (uncommonly) orange and (rarely) a brilliant red, all against a pale blue sclera. Their skin has a cold, ashen tone quite distinct from a humans’. Sometimes the hair gets darker or lighter, sometimes purpler or oranger or even the rare yellow, and the eyes can also range in shade and tint and hue, sometimes oranger, less commonly red, and most rarely edging just the tiniest bit into green.
Dwarfs
Although it seems unlikely, dwarfs are considered Fair Folk, cousin to the Fey, and one of the original races born in Galatia. They are very closed about their culture and their knowledge, couldn’t care less about any of the other races, and will nonetheless occasionally trade with the surface dwellers for food and magical services. They have little use for man-made objects, but are nonetheless far more technologically advanced than humans may ever hope to be. Because of their inherently magical nature, dwarfs often have trouble channeling spells and therefore require outsiders to do their enchantments.
According to dwarfin legend, dwarfs are the children of one of deep Kellide’s schemes. Wishing that fiery Soleh would spend more than one night at a time in her stone bed, Kellide trapped him underground by means of cunning and clever tricks. There, she luxuriated with him in the sweetness of their respective loins. Dwarfs spilled from her womb as a result, dwarfs who began to talk with and sympathize with their father. They set to work inventing things to free him, and after many failed (and oft humorous) attempts, one invention showed promise. On the drawing board, anyway ~ volcanoes are notoriously difficult to test. But work it did, and Soleh was freed, and anger overtook him such that he was wroth against any reminder of his time in captivity. As these things too often go, the very children of his that saved him bore much of the brunt of this temper tantrum. After enough attacks and petty vengeances from their father, the dwarfs retreated under the mountains, telling their children to avoid and fear the sun and to mourn their lost relationship with it.
Two centuries ago, the Empire came to Worth. The daughter of Emeritus who had forced the Dalmatian queen Aloranis to his bridegroom’s bed in order to lay claim to her lands by Fey law sought now to make her name. Eliesia the Half-Elfin, she was called, and a simple war of conquest she fought. Her armies echoed through the tunnels in the peaks of the dwarfin lands. Contingents of the short Fair Folk formed bands of guerillas that used all their engineering tricks to defeat, deter, and kill the human soldiers, but most remained at their work. These latter would, without shift of countenance or indeed attention, simply turn from that work when necessary and treat the human before them as just another ore-vein that yielded to their picks and axes, and then return to work without missing more than a beat. It was perhaps this lack of coordination, or this lack of concern over the bloody arts, that gave the dwarfin realm of Worth the loss, and gave Galatia its final province. Matthieu d’Holbach, of the line of Metontas, was given the task of settling Worth and crushing resistance; he would go on to succeed Queen Eliesia and serve his time as King of the Galatian Empire.
While king, d’Holbach enlisted a sizeable workforce of military engineers, civil architects, and serfs to work alongside scores of dwarfin tunnelers, building a network across the empire of subterranean arteries beneath all of its highways and byways. This was, in truth, rather a genius bit of statecraft, as it not only made it easier for the Worthese to travel and spread across his domain, but it actually pulled many of them out into the greater world. Moreso, in doing it so, it put them in close contact with the other races of Galatia, breaking down barriers and easing tensions borne of such quick expansion ~ Galatia gained Dalmatia and Worth within two or three human generations (seems a lot to us, but imagine how short that is to the other races, who live two to seven times as long as us!).
Physical Description: Quite naturally, dwarfs are noticeably shorter than humans or elfs. Their dense, thickly-corded muscles ripple unseen under a thick layer of fat, like mountain stone beneath dozens of feet of snow, while blazingly yellow-blond hair waves in fair flickers from their head. Braiding these hairs is not in fashion, but that doesn’t mean dwarfs aren’t vain about them ~ brushing it out to glistening is an extended ritual on both ends of the day, and it is often arranged in any number of coiffures that somehow catch even the slight breezes of the underground and float hauntingly. This hair, in the same range of shades and hues and tints, carpets their bodies and their limbs. And their chins. Let’s get it settled now: all genders of dwarfs proudly wear thick, luxuriant, flowing beards, and they’re just as vain about their chin-hairs as their head-hairs. Dwarfin eyes are a warm yellow flecked with white and (uncommonly) orange and (rarely) a brilliant red, all against a pale blue sclera. Their skin has a cold, ashen tone quite distinct from a humans’. Sometimes the hair gets darker or lighter, sometimes purpler or oranger or even the rare yellow, and the eyes can also range in shade and tint and hue, sometimes oranger, less commonly red, and most rarely edging just the tiniest bit into green.
Friday, November 2, 2018
Putting it all together: verbs (Fantasy Friday #20)
lilquoylih’ /lĩ˦lkʷõĩlɪ̃˨ʔ/ “it is getting closer” (This word would be used for, i.e., a missile approaching a target, when it is known that the missile has been aimed at that target.)
lilquoytiq /lĩ˦lkʷõĩtʰĩ˦x/ “it is getting closer” (more appropriate if a missile is getting closer, but its intended destination is not known)
rihmintoylih’ /rɪ̃˨mĩ˦ntʰõĩlɪ̃˨ʔ/ “I am sending (something)” (implies that the something is in the process of being sent, but that there is a finite amount of the thing, so there will be a definite end to the sending)
quiginnuhs /kʷĩ˦gĩ˦nːʌ̃˨ʂ/ “I am honored to see you”
qihquitnuhs /xɪ̃˨kʷĩ˦tʰnʌ̃˨ʂ/ “do me the honor of telling me”
nkituhruhnkih’ /ᵑkĩ˦tʰʌ̃˨rʌ̃˨ᵑkɪ̃˨ʔ/ “as soon as you control it”
quigoynnkih’ /kʷĩ˦gõĩnᵑkɪ̃˨ʔ/ “as soon as I command you”
nkinkirchoygh /ᵑkĩ˦ᵑkirt͡ʃõĩɣ/ “if you want them”
choquitchoygh /t͡ʃɔ̃˞kʷĩ˦t͡ʃʰõĩɣ/ “if you tell me”
choquitti’ /t͡ʃɔ̃˞kʷĩ˦tːʰĩ˦ʔ/ “before you tell me”
quigoynti’ /kʷĩ˦gõĩntʰĩ˦ʔ/ “before I command you”
nihkhunktiqrihs /nɪ̃˨q͡χʌ̃˨ᵑktĩ˦xrɪ̃˨ʂ/ “while you are sleeping”
chogin’i’ /t͡ʃɔ̃˞gĩ˦nʔĩ˦ʔ/ “do you see me?”
roynquoy’i’ /rõĩnkʷõĩʔĩ˦ʔ/ “does he/she/it understand?”
As with nouns, when more than one suffix is used with a verb, they must occur in the correct order, according to their type. No more than one suffix of each type may occur at a time. No instances have been found of a verb followed by nine suffixes, but it is theoretically possible. A few examples should suffice to show ordering of the suffixes.
noyrirtoy’’i’ /nõĩrĩ˦rtʰõĩʔːĩ˦ʔ/ “have they discovered us?”
noy- (pronomial prefix) “they—us”
rir (verb) “discover”
-toy’ (aspectual suffix) perfective
-’i’ (syntactic suffix) interrogative
noyrtoy’uhghtoy’ /nõĩrtʰõĩʔʌ̃˨ɣtʰõĩʔ/ “he/she/it destroyed him/herself/itself”
∅ (pronomial prefix) “he/she/it”
noyrtoy (verb) “destroy”
-uhgh (reflexive suffix) “oneself”
-toy’ (aspectual suffix) perfective
sihlogtoymoqliq /ʂɪ̃˨lɔ̃˞gtʰõĩmɔ̃˞xlĩ˦x/ “we can create it”
sih- (pronomial prefix) “we—it”
logtoy (verb) “take form”
-moq (causative suffix) “cause”
-liq (potentive suffix) “can; able”
nkirinloy’tiq /ᵑkĩ˦rĩ˦nlõĩʔtĩ˦x/ “you are to be remembered”
nki- (pronomial prefix) “you—him/her/it”
rin (verb) “remember”
-loy’ (potentive suffix) indefinite subject
-tiq (aspectual suffix) continuous
rihnkoytoynihstoy’ /rɪ̃˨ᵑkõĩtʰõĩnɪ̃˨ʂtʰõĩʔ/ “I needed to take him/her/it”
rih- (pronomial prefix) “I—him/her/it”
nkoytoy (verb) “take”
-nihs (volitive suffix) “need”
-toy’ (aspectual suffix) perfective
khirquingmoqloy’toy’ /q͡χĩ˦rkʷĩ˦ŋmɔ̃˞xlõĩʔtʰõĩʔ/ “it made him/her/it willing to die”
∅ (pronomial prefix) “he/she/it—him/her/it”
khir (verb) “die”
-quing (volitive suffix) “willing”
-moq (causative suffix) “cause”
-loy’ (potentive suffix) indefinite suffix
-toy’ (aspectual suffix) perfective
mililquoychoqmoqnuhs’i’ /mĩ˦lĩ˦lkʷõĩt͡ʃɔ̃˞xmɔ̃˞xnʌ̃˨ʂʔːĩ˦ʔ/ “may we execute a course (to some place)?”
mi- (pronomial prefix) “we”
lilquoy (verb) “proceed on a course”
-choq (transformative suffix) change
-moq (causative suffix) cause
-nuhs (honorific suffix) honorific
-’i’ (syntctic suffix) interrogative
There is one additional set of verb suffixes which Orcish grammarians call lilquoysih’muhg “rovers”. Rovers are verb suffixes which do not have a fixed position in relation to the other suffixes following a verb but, instead, can come just about anywhere except following a syntactic suffix. Their position is determined by the meaning intended. There are two types of rovers: the negative and the emphatic. Here are some examples of rovers in action:
rihnkoyro’liqnuh’ /rɪ̃˨ᵑkõĩrɔ̃˞ʔlĩ˦xnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “they are useless to me” “I cannot use them”
rih- (pronomial prefix) “I—them”
nkoyro’ (verb) “use”
-liq (potentive suffix) “can; able”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
jihgilnkinuh’ /d͡ʒɪ̃˨gĩ˦lᵑkĩ˦nʌ̃˨ʔ/ “I don’t care (which of several courses of action is followed)”
jih- (pronomial prefix) “I”
gilnki (verb) “care; be concerned about; choose”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
royngoynuh’ /rːõĩŋõĩnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “it’s not a problem” “no problem!”
∅ (pronomial prefix) “he/she/it—him/her/it”
royngoy (verb) “be a problem; be a hassle”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
The roving nature of “-nuh’” is best illustrated in the following set of words.
chonoyrtoyriht /t͡ʃɔ̃˞nõĩrtʰõĩrɪ̃˨tʰ/ “you are afraid to kill me”
chonoyrtoyrihtnuh’ /t͡ʃɔ̃˞nõĩrtʰõĩrɪ̃˨tʰnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “you are not afraid to kill me”
chonoyrtoynuh’riht /t͡ʃɔ̃˞nõĩrtʰõĩnʌ̃˨ʔrɪ̃˨tʰ/ “you are afraid to not kill me”
cho- (pronomial prefix) “you—me”
noyrtoy (verb) “kill”
-riht (volitive suffix) “afraid”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
In the second word, the negated notion is “afraid” (that is, “not afraid”), and “-nuh'” follows “-riht.” In the third word, the negated notion is “kill” (that is, “not kill”), so “-nuh’” follows “noyrtoy.”
tiroy /tʰirõĩ/: (verb) to be right
-ti’ /.tʰĩ˦ʔ/: (syntactic suffix) before
toyroy /tʰõĩrõĩ/: (verb) to be lofty; to be tall; to be high
tuhroy /tʰʌ̃˨rõĩ/: (verb) to be big; to be great; to be large
toynkoy /tʰõĩᵑkõĩ/: (verb) to be sure; to be fixed; to be firm; to be certain
igsoy /ĩ˦gʂõĩ/: (verb) to be other
irissioy /ĩ˦rĩ˦ʂːĩ˦õĩ/: (verb) to be the only; to be lonely; to be solitary
quoyntoy /kʷõĩntʰõĩ/: (verb) to be full; to be filled
quoyroy /kʷõĩrõĩ/: (verb) to be old; to be ancient; to belong to or descend from former times
olgoy /ɔ̃˞lgõĩ/: (verb) to be evil; to be bad; to be wicked
sinquoy /ʂĩ˦nkʷõĩ/: (verb) to be young; to be new
mintoy /mĩ˦ntʰõĩ/: (verb) to send; to cause to go (in a desired direction)
-muhq /.mʌ̃˨x/: (syntactic suffix) for; marks purpose clauses
-choygh /.t͡ʃõĩɣ/: (syntactic suffix) if
nkoyro’ /ᵑkõĩrɔ̃˞ʔ/: (verb) to use
-nkih’ /.ᵑkɪ̃˨ʔ/: (syntactic suffix) as soon as; when
gisoy /gĩ˦ʂõĩ/: (verb) to be new; to be fresh
gilnki /gĩ˦lᵑkĩ˦/: (verb) to care; to be concerned about; to choose
goyn /gõĩn/: (verb) to command; to order; to give an order; (with things as object) to demand
nitoy /nĩ˦tʰõĩ/: (verb) to be small; to be frail; to be weak; to be little
-nogh /.nɔ̃˞ɣ/: (syntactic suffix) which; relative clause marker
-nuhs /.nʌ̃˨ʂ/: (honorific suffix) used to express extreme politeness or deference. It is used only in addressing a superior, someone of higher rank in the orcish social, political, or military hierarchy. It is never required; used rather infrequently by orcs)
-nuh’ /.nʌ̃˨ʔ/: (rover suffix) not; general negative suffix (follows the concept being negated; can’t be used with imperative verbs))
oynloy /õĩnlõĩ/: (verb) to be long; to be far
oynwoy /õĩnwõĩ/: (verb) to be real; to be actual; to be true
rir /rĩ˦r/: (verb) to find; to discover
rroyngoy /rːõĩŋõĩ/: (verb) to be a problem; to be awkward; to be hard; to be stiff; to be difficult; to be a hassle
-rihs /.rɪ̃˨ʂ/: (syntactic suffix) while (always used with the aspectual suffix -tiq)
lonk /lɔ̃˞ᵑk/: (verb) to hide
lonksih’ /lɔ̃˞ᵑkʂɪ̃˨ʔ/: (noun) camouflage; cloak of hiding
-lih’ /.lɪ̃˨ʔ/: (aspectual suffix) in progress; indicates that an activity is ongoing implying that the activity has a known goal or a definite stopping point (in other words, it suggests that progress is being made toward that goal)
-’i’ /.ʔĩ˦ʔ/: (syntactic suffix) interrogative (yes/no question)
wilwoy /wĩ˦lwõĩ/: (verb) to be vague; to flutter; to flutter to and fro
wilwoysih’ /wĩ˦lwõĩʂɪ̃˨ʔ/: (noun) flag
lilquoytiq /lĩ˦lkʷõĩtʰĩ˦x/ “it is getting closer” (more appropriate if a missile is getting closer, but its intended destination is not known)
rihmintoylih’ /rɪ̃˨mĩ˦ntʰõĩlɪ̃˨ʔ/ “I am sending (something)” (implies that the something is in the process of being sent, but that there is a finite amount of the thing, so there will be a definite end to the sending)
quiginnuhs /kʷĩ˦gĩ˦nːʌ̃˨ʂ/ “I am honored to see you”
qihquitnuhs /xɪ̃˨kʷĩ˦tʰnʌ̃˨ʂ/ “do me the honor of telling me”
nkituhruhnkih’ /ᵑkĩ˦tʰʌ̃˨rʌ̃˨ᵑkɪ̃˨ʔ/ “as soon as you control it”
quigoynnkih’ /kʷĩ˦gõĩnᵑkɪ̃˨ʔ/ “as soon as I command you”
nkinkirchoygh /ᵑkĩ˦ᵑkirt͡ʃõĩɣ/ “if you want them”
choquitchoygh /t͡ʃɔ̃˞kʷĩ˦t͡ʃʰõĩɣ/ “if you tell me”
choquitti’ /t͡ʃɔ̃˞kʷĩ˦tːʰĩ˦ʔ/ “before you tell me”
quigoynti’ /kʷĩ˦gõĩntʰĩ˦ʔ/ “before I command you”
nihkhunktiqrihs /nɪ̃˨q͡χʌ̃˨ᵑktĩ˦xrɪ̃˨ʂ/ “while you are sleeping”
chogin’i’ /t͡ʃɔ̃˞gĩ˦nʔĩ˦ʔ/ “do you see me?”
roynquoy’i’ /rõĩnkʷõĩʔĩ˦ʔ/ “does he/she/it understand?”
As with nouns, when more than one suffix is used with a verb, they must occur in the correct order, according to their type. No more than one suffix of each type may occur at a time. No instances have been found of a verb followed by nine suffixes, but it is theoretically possible. A few examples should suffice to show ordering of the suffixes.
noyrirtoy’’i’ /nõĩrĩ˦rtʰõĩʔːĩ˦ʔ/ “have they discovered us?”
noy- (pronomial prefix) “they—us”
rir (verb) “discover”
-toy’ (aspectual suffix) perfective
-’i’ (syntactic suffix) interrogative
noyrtoy’uhghtoy’ /nõĩrtʰõĩʔʌ̃˨ɣtʰõĩʔ/ “he/she/it destroyed him/herself/itself”
∅ (pronomial prefix) “he/she/it”
noyrtoy (verb) “destroy”
-uhgh (reflexive suffix) “oneself”
-toy’ (aspectual suffix) perfective
sihlogtoymoqliq /ʂɪ̃˨lɔ̃˞gtʰõĩmɔ̃˞xlĩ˦x/ “we can create it”
sih- (pronomial prefix) “we—it”
logtoy (verb) “take form”
-moq (causative suffix) “cause”
-liq (potentive suffix) “can; able”
nkirinloy’tiq /ᵑkĩ˦rĩ˦nlõĩʔtĩ˦x/ “you are to be remembered”
nki- (pronomial prefix) “you—him/her/it”
rin (verb) “remember”
-loy’ (potentive suffix) indefinite subject
-tiq (aspectual suffix) continuous
rihnkoytoynihstoy’ /rɪ̃˨ᵑkõĩtʰõĩnɪ̃˨ʂtʰõĩʔ/ “I needed to take him/her/it”
rih- (pronomial prefix) “I—him/her/it”
nkoytoy (verb) “take”
-nihs (volitive suffix) “need”
-toy’ (aspectual suffix) perfective
khirquingmoqloy’toy’ /q͡χĩ˦rkʷĩ˦ŋmɔ̃˞xlõĩʔtʰõĩʔ/ “it made him/her/it willing to die”
∅ (pronomial prefix) “he/she/it—him/her/it”
khir (verb) “die”
-quing (volitive suffix) “willing”
-moq (causative suffix) “cause”
-loy’ (potentive suffix) indefinite suffix
-toy’ (aspectual suffix) perfective
mililquoychoqmoqnuhs’i’ /mĩ˦lĩ˦lkʷõĩt͡ʃɔ̃˞xmɔ̃˞xnʌ̃˨ʂʔːĩ˦ʔ/ “may we execute a course (to some place)?”
mi- (pronomial prefix) “we”
lilquoy (verb) “proceed on a course”
-choq (transformative suffix) change
-moq (causative suffix) cause
-nuhs (honorific suffix) honorific
-’i’ (syntctic suffix) interrogative
There is one additional set of verb suffixes which Orcish grammarians call lilquoysih’muhg “rovers”. Rovers are verb suffixes which do not have a fixed position in relation to the other suffixes following a verb but, instead, can come just about anywhere except following a syntactic suffix. Their position is determined by the meaning intended. There are two types of rovers: the negative and the emphatic. Here are some examples of rovers in action:
rihnkoyro’liqnuh’ /rɪ̃˨ᵑkõĩrɔ̃˞ʔlĩ˦xnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “they are useless to me” “I cannot use them”
rih- (pronomial prefix) “I—them”
nkoyro’ (verb) “use”
-liq (potentive suffix) “can; able”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
jihgilnkinuh’ /d͡ʒɪ̃˨gĩ˦lᵑkĩ˦nʌ̃˨ʔ/ “I don’t care (which of several courses of action is followed)”
jih- (pronomial prefix) “I”
gilnki (verb) “care; be concerned about; choose”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
royngoynuh’ /rːõĩŋõĩnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “it’s not a problem” “no problem!”
∅ (pronomial prefix) “he/she/it—him/her/it”
royngoy (verb) “be a problem; be a hassle”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
The roving nature of “-nuh’” is best illustrated in the following set of words.
chonoyrtoyriht /t͡ʃɔ̃˞nõĩrtʰõĩrɪ̃˨tʰ/ “you are afraid to kill me”
chonoyrtoyrihtnuh’ /t͡ʃɔ̃˞nõĩrtʰõĩrɪ̃˨tʰnʌ̃˨ʔ/ “you are not afraid to kill me”
chonoyrtoynuh’riht /t͡ʃɔ̃˞nõĩrtʰõĩnʌ̃˨ʔrɪ̃˨tʰ/ “you are afraid to not kill me”
cho- (pronomial prefix) “you—me”
noyrtoy (verb) “kill”
-riht (volitive suffix) “afraid”
-nuh’ (rover suffix) “not”
In the second word, the negated notion is “afraid” (that is, “not afraid”), and “-nuh'” follows “-riht.” In the third word, the negated notion is “kill” (that is, “not kill”), so “-nuh’” follows “noyrtoy.”
tiroy /tʰirõĩ/: (verb) to be right
-ti’ /.tʰĩ˦ʔ/: (syntactic suffix) before
toyroy /tʰõĩrõĩ/: (verb) to be lofty; to be tall; to be high
tuhroy /tʰʌ̃˨rõĩ/: (verb) to be big; to be great; to be large
toynkoy /tʰõĩᵑkõĩ/: (verb) to be sure; to be fixed; to be firm; to be certain
igsoy /ĩ˦gʂõĩ/: (verb) to be other
irissioy /ĩ˦rĩ˦ʂːĩ˦õĩ/: (verb) to be the only; to be lonely; to be solitary
quoyntoy /kʷõĩntʰõĩ/: (verb) to be full; to be filled
quoyroy /kʷõĩrõĩ/: (verb) to be old; to be ancient; to belong to or descend from former times
olgoy /ɔ̃˞lgõĩ/: (verb) to be evil; to be bad; to be wicked
sinquoy /ʂĩ˦nkʷõĩ/: (verb) to be young; to be new
mintoy /mĩ˦ntʰõĩ/: (verb) to send; to cause to go (in a desired direction)
-muhq /.mʌ̃˨x/: (syntactic suffix) for; marks purpose clauses
-choygh /.t͡ʃõĩɣ/: (syntactic suffix) if
nkoyro’ /ᵑkõĩrɔ̃˞ʔ/: (verb) to use
-nkih’ /.ᵑkɪ̃˨ʔ/: (syntactic suffix) as soon as; when
gisoy /gĩ˦ʂõĩ/: (verb) to be new; to be fresh
gilnki /gĩ˦lᵑkĩ˦/: (verb) to care; to be concerned about; to choose
goyn /gõĩn/: (verb) to command; to order; to give an order; (with things as object) to demand
nitoy /nĩ˦tʰõĩ/: (verb) to be small; to be frail; to be weak; to be little
-nogh /.nɔ̃˞ɣ/: (syntactic suffix) which; relative clause marker
-nuhs /.nʌ̃˨ʂ/: (honorific suffix) used to express extreme politeness or deference. It is used only in addressing a superior, someone of higher rank in the orcish social, political, or military hierarchy. It is never required; used rather infrequently by orcs)
-nuh’ /.nʌ̃˨ʔ/: (rover suffix) not; general negative suffix (follows the concept being negated; can’t be used with imperative verbs))
oynloy /õĩnlõĩ/: (verb) to be long; to be far
oynwoy /õĩnwõĩ/: (verb) to be real; to be actual; to be true
rir /rĩ˦r/: (verb) to find; to discover
rroyngoy /rːõĩŋõĩ/: (verb) to be a problem; to be awkward; to be hard; to be stiff; to be difficult; to be a hassle
-rihs /.rɪ̃˨ʂ/: (syntactic suffix) while (always used with the aspectual suffix -tiq)
lonk /lɔ̃˞ᵑk/: (verb) to hide
lonksih’ /lɔ̃˞ᵑkʂɪ̃˨ʔ/: (noun) camouflage; cloak of hiding
-lih’ /.lɪ̃˨ʔ/: (aspectual suffix) in progress; indicates that an activity is ongoing implying that the activity has a known goal or a definite stopping point (in other words, it suggests that progress is being made toward that goal)
-’i’ /.ʔĩ˦ʔ/: (syntactic suffix) interrogative (yes/no question)
wilwoy /wĩ˦lwõĩ/: (verb) to be vague; to flutter; to flutter to and fro
wilwoysih’ /wĩ˦lwõĩʂɪ̃˨ʔ/: (noun) flag
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