Some Snippets from The World: Yeola-Camay

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Egerius
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

Post by Egerius »

I might suspect it's a MIDI file, thus created electronically.
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

Post by elemtilas »

How did you record the tune? Do you play the flute or whatever that is?
Egerius wrote:I might suspect it's a MIDI file, thus created electronically.
Yes, this piece was done up on Muse Score and made into an .ogg file (that seems to be the sound file Frath Wiki is compatible with). It's as many as six or eight flutes playing in parallel -- the joys of parallel fourths, sixths, octaves and fifteenths!

I can play the flute & whistle, but by no means terribly well. These tunes were all composed on either whistle or recorder. I've not had much luck trying to record myself playing. Cell phone doesn't record all that well, and I don't have any actual recording equipment for the computer.

The kind of flute from *here* that would best mimic the kind of flute made by Turghun would be the shakuhachi:

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Re: Some Snippets from The World

Post by elemtilas »

[tick]

Fireheart


Space. Some people have called it the final frontier. A place to be explored, understood, perhaps even conquered. At the very least, a place to wonder at; a place where dreams can fly free.

But there are Others who think rather differently. For not all people would find even the concept of space at all a comfortable topic fit for polite conversation; and they would look down most severly upon those whose dreams fly into those boundless horizions.

Among these are the Chthaan. Apart from being dwellers of the deepest places of Gea; these folks are also highly xenophobic (with good reason, they say) and also extremely mistrustful of anything that might conceivably happen beyond the sludgy interface of their world and the existencelessness of what most surely does not actually exist beyond their known world.

These Chthaan inhabit an enclosed world, the allermost deep places of Gea, a seemingly extraordinarily ordinary planet, free to wander with its parent star in a broad universe the very existence of which is denied by the more orthodox of these dwellers of the Uttermost Deeps. The world of the Chthaan is divided into three great realms: the Shore Below marks the core interface, the region where the liquid sphere above meets the solid sphere below, a lanscape of jagged iron mountains, deep cloven rifts, broad plains and sheltered dales; then there is the Great Ocean of the liquid sphere itself, its mighty typhoons and flowing currents rush about,dashing against the iron peaks, washing along the plains and rifts alike; and high above this is the Shore Above, where the sludgy interface demarcates the cooling edge of the world, beyond which all things settle and solidify and become dead.

Even their societies are divided into the same three realms: the Bottom Dwellers, being closest to the Core, which is the center of the
universe, are the most highly esteemed and live upon the Shore Below. Relatively few beings live in the Great Ocean, for it swirls about and its currents are very swift. The Middle Dwellers are therefore large and mighty folk. Up near the Interface is where the Highest Dwellers make their dwelling, along the Shore Above. They are farthest from the Core, and thus the least esteemed; but in these cooler regions folk take life more slowly, think about things longer and more carefully than others.

It was from among the realms of the Highest Dwellers, one time, that one particular fellow, a young scholar by the name of Apaitiyo, begged of a Middle Dweller friend to take him all the way down to the Core for a visit with a third friend, a more elderly scholar called Sethelan.


And they got to talking. And as much you might think the great folk who inhabit the profoundest regions of our world, deep beneath our feet, might be so very different from us, this is not actually the case!

For, they too often begin their conversations with greetings and thence moving on to asking after the health of ancestors and descendants
alike, which I don’t mention, because just as with us, there is always old Auntie Shuongsang, whose aches and pains are legion and cousin Thurghmamg, who is in trouble with the parent of Kurkrang again, even though he’s been warned to say clear of Kurkrang and the state of affairs in the whole community is in shambles what with the elections on and both sides grumbling about each others policies.

Mention is made of the wild weather of late, and the weather down there in the deep places of the world is of considerable interest to us, for it is quite different from ours:

“So, friend Apaitiyo, I hear the weather Up your way has been wilder than usual. Mind you, too cold by half for me,” sniffs Sethelan, who is more used to the warmth of the Shore Below.

“Oh, not so bad as all that, friend Sethelan,” replied Apaitiyo amiably. “The cooler temperature would do you good! The currents are a little
tamer, the vortices less furious. I find it quite relaxing to just drift about for a time in a swirl of cool nickel and contemplate life and existence.”

“Ha, you Shore Above folk and your cool swirls of nickel! I’ll tell you we haven’t had a half horrendous series of typhoons roar overhead here
along the Shore Below! Even the great swimmers above were hard put to maintain their courses, and I could see them bumping and jostling one another as they sought for some safe harbor. A couple even sought to swim down here and lay low for a while. I can tell you it was quite scary to find a pair those behemoths coming to rest along that iron ridge over yonder, scattering all manner of folk as they did!

“And then, a short while after they scattered everyone again in their struggles to rise up off the surface of the Core, didn’t it start raining?
And not a nice sweet shower of platinum or iridium, no sir; but a harsh and pounding fall of frozen iron! The bits got everywhere and anyone who couldn’t find shelter, well, their scarred and pitted carapaces tell the tale! And, what is more, it took an age and half for the stuff to finally melt!”


And so the banter went back and forth until at last Sethelan invited Apaitiyo to enter the chamber of discourse where they could while away
much time in pleasant disputation as befitted two great scholar friends. Here we listen in on this conversation taking place between the two friends of the allermost deep places of Gea...

“. . .Well, tastes differ,” replied Apaitiyo; “as the elder scholars say — or, at least, would say once convinced that people or indeed life of any
kind could exist Outside, within the terrible cold and rigid structure of the Borderlands of the Fiery Deeps.”

“Nonsense!” retorded Sethelan scaathingly. “Nothing whatsoever can live in the frigid zone beyond the sludging ooze of the Shore Above! As
everyone knows, all living beings inhabit the realms of the Shore Above, the Great Ocean and the Shore Below, close to the very Core of Fireheart. Only those sad and half-mad scavenger beings, those Diggers that can tolerate the entirely too cold climates of the semi-rigid zone beyond the Sludging Ooze may just barely eke out an existence beyond your Shores Above.”

“Or, indeed,” enjoined Apaitiyo jovially; “Outside them entirely, as put forth by certain of our scholar philosophers. Although the notion is
entrenched that the solid world just stops once one travels far enough out from Fireheart and there is naught but Void beyond...”

This line of disputation always irked the scholars of the Shore Below especially; they found the tales told by some of the Shore Abovers
most irritatingly ‘unorthodox’. “Stuff and nonsense, sir! It is incontrovertible truth, handed down by every wise sage and scholar that beyond the Solid Interface is indeed ‘naught but Void’ and furthermore that no living being could travel there, let alone survive there. It is utterly and unfathomably unorthodox to think that way!

“Life comes only from Fireheart herself, the living center of our world! — to live is to be close to her, to bask in the ankanic warmth she
radiates and swim in her beautiful and bountiful seas and feel the thaumic breezes whip about one’s adamant carapace! Beyond Fireheart, and beyond what she has created is only frozen Death! Pah! The coolth of the Shore Above has addled your wits, friend! Beyond is but a place only of death and deatheaters. After all, do not the lifeless hulks of once living beings occasionally precipitate down from the ooze above?”

“Of course, friend Sethelan,” replied Apaitiyo. “There are those who will not consider such matters appropriate for debate by serious
Nuscuan thinkers! That such contemplation and research is suitable only for the wild speculations of eccentric scholars and fabulists, perhaps.”

“Hah!” snorted Sethelan. “Suitable perhaps for that school of Pellean thinkers only who would taint our younglings with tales of nonsense
beings that can supposedly live on the Outside of the universe. Outside the universe, they say! What rot! The universe begins with Fireheart and dies in the solid zone beyond. There is no Outside!

“Even if there were an Outside, do these fabulists not understand that the decreasing pressure — easily felt even along the verges of the
Shore Above — would be enough to cause the disintigration of a living being? To say nothing of the biting cold of those utterly frozen Plates some radical theorists say enclose the universe?

“Beings who disseminate such heresy ought to be consigned to the frozen abodes of Death, if those stony and frozen domains are where
their hearts lie. Lest they tempt and trick less thoughtful beings into useless dreams or worse, assaying an adventure beyond the sludging ooze, where they will surely perish.

“One shudders to ponder existence in such an existenceless place!” Sethelan had surely gotten himself worked up this time, and all the
household gathered in the chamber of disputation were listening in rapt attention.

“But of course this is not the sort of thing that ought to intrude upon the worldview of one’s younglings and servitors.” Apaitiyo was careful to
not rile Sethelan’s ire too strongly. He wanted to discuss this rationally, and perhaps convince his old friend to at least examine the evidence, rather than just hand down a pronouncement as most orthodox scholars did.

“Indeed not my friend!” replied Sethelan. “These wild tales of living beings existing upon the frozen carapace of the universe is utter
nonsense, my young comrade! But having turned away from the brink of unorthodox thinking, you can be forgiven the momentary lapse in judgement!”

Some while passed, the two old friends pondering the things spoken of. At last, the host arose, inviting the guest: “Come friend Apaitiyo! Let
us swim a while, and bask in Fireheart’s warmth! It will do us both some good to move away from the formalities of the chamber of disputation!”

They left the others of the household in the chamber to continue with their own discussions and ambled along the broad gardens outside the
house for some time in thoughtful silence. The roar of thaumic winds caressing their age hardened carapaces, seemed little more than a breeze. The flows of molten iron and nickel broke over the jagged peaks of the mountains, swirling about them like blazing streamers. In the depression where stood the house and gardens of Sethelan, the currents were much reduced, and rare flowers of crystalline nickel were in peak bloom amid vines and creepers of sulfurated iron. Sethelan relaxed noticeably, and abruptly made of Apaitiyo a most unexpected request.


“So, tell me comrade Apaitiyo, for although I find the notion utterly unorthodox, I am yet unaccountably and insatiously curious. Tell me
what kinds of folk it is the Pellean scholars of the Shore Above say live Outside the universe! How can any living thing exist beyond those solid Plates that surround and define Fireheart’s creation?”

Apaitiyo was pleasantly surprised: this was an opportunity not to be missed! He thought for some time as they lazed in the warmth of the
Shore Below. His reply came very very carefully at first, as if being strongly desirous of not starting a new disputation here in the garden. “Friend
Sethelan, I will tell you what you ask! Though I dare say you will not believe. I have always known you to be a Being of principle, one who will accept a truth once he has perceived its nature. Although I will tell you, I will ask only that you withold your judgement until you come to the Shore Above and discover for yourself!”

Now Sethelan was both intrigued but also prepared for some barmy tale as the folk Above like to tell. But as Apaitiyo’s tale began, it seemed
less and less like the usual fable and more like there might just be a portion of truth in it.

For it seems that those ‘mad’ Diggers into the sludging ooze Above have stumbled upon a great secret of Fireheart’s creation, one utterly
unknown to the Nuscuan scholars of Below, closer to Her own heart, and one being explored only recently by the Pellean scholars of Above.

“One time the scholar Ashyat was listening to the idle tales of several of these diggers of the ooze and learned from them the secret of the
Ankanic River. Few of the scholarly classes had ever paid much mind to the tales of the diggers, and these turned out to be delighted that one would listen to them with respect and not derision.

“‘Come, come!’ they said. ‘We will show you the wonder of which we speak.’ And they took Ashyat to certain places in the Shore Above
where a dome occurrs in the Interface. ‘See here, where the sludge thins and an arm of the Great Sea pierces through? In some places, such piercings are quite short, and we call those small bays of the Sea. These happen all over the Shore Above, and are well known. But in other places, well, the flow of the Sea is strong and what pierces through the Interface we call a River, and here is a mighty River indeed, and not only of iron but of molten stone as well!’ (This even I found hard to believe, for the only stone I’ve ever known is rather solider than the flowing iron of the Sea!)

“The dome narrowed considerably into a broad funnel and the currents changed. Rather than the strong flow parallel to the Shore, the flow in
the River was clearly Up and away from the Sea! Here Ashyat saw all kinds of strange creatures and met folk the like of which she had never seen before. Their abodes they dug into the Shores of the River and they passed their time fishing in the strong currents for whatever morsels they might find.

“At last they came to a colony of diggers, and here scholar Ashyat met a lord of the diggers in his deep dolven home near the very neck of
the funnel. ‘Welcome! We have heard tales of your coming, and there are here some folk you should meet, scholar!’ In this way the king introduced Ashyat to an embassy of folk entirely unlike any who inhabit the Great Sea between the Shore Above and the Shore Below.

“Smaller than the folk of the Sea, they nevertheless appeared quite intelligent and one floated before Ashyat and spoke for them all: ‘We are
come from the River Queen, the folk who swim Up and Down the Great River, and at times Beyond the Edge. We are the Magmanauts and our Queen’s
scholars would speak with you, learn about the Sea and its folk. The Diggers are good trade folk and have much wisdom of the ooze and the Interface, but can tell us little of what lies beyond their domains.’

“And so it was that Ashyat was to gather a small embassy of likely scholars and journey up the Great River to the palace of the River Queen.
In those days, there were no Nascuan or Pellean scholars, as most everyone held to the views now espoused most strongly by the Pelleans of the Shore Below. But a few sought to break from the securities of ancient lore and think new thoughts. These Ashyat sought out and after some long while, they journeyed up the Great River with the Magmanauts. The River proved to be quite broad, though not heavily trafficked. On occasion, they would pass by some other Magmanauts on journeys or errands of their own.

“After a very long while, Ashyat began to sense a lightening of the pressure on her body. The chief of the Magmanauts said: ‘You notice the
change in pressure? It will become even less as we approach the palace. Farther along, it lessens ever more until, Beyond, at the Edge, all pressure is
relieved and one may float free for a time, bound only by the sure attraction of Fireheart that draws all Beings to Herself.’ And it was as the chief had said. Soon enough, Ashyat could feel a lessening of the pressure again.

“And passing ever Upwards along the Great River, they came at last to the palace of the River Queen, and she welcomed them and they
conversed for some time on the doings of Sea and River alike. At last she said: ‘And for now I bid you fare well! My scholars are no doubt eager to meet you all and converse at length about these matters and many more!’

“And so it was the Ashyat and her companions spent many long whiles in the company of the River Queen’s scholars, and they learned much
of the River, its folk and customs, and also of those Things that lie Beyond the Interface.

“The Magmanauts swim not only Down the River towards the Sea, but also all the way Up the River. And all along this great river of iron and
stone one is able to swim with the same ease as swimming in the Sea between the Shores! It is much narrower than the Sea, and surrounded by sludging ooze, but many folk make their homes along its length. And there are also great lakes of roiling, molten stone.

“Ashyat determined to travel to experience these lakes of roiling, molten stone while the other scholars stayed with Pelle, the chief scholar
of the River Queen. Ashyat’s journey was long indeed, and she swam through many great lakes and met with many folk, some of whom were very helpful and others more capricious. Not all were civilised like those folk living close to Fireheart!

“One time, several Shurong wanderers enticed her to come with them, and they led her into an ever narrowing stream of magma leading
away from the lake. And there she got quite stuck! She could neither follow the diminutive Shurong wanderers as they laughed and mocked her, nor could she shift herself back out of the streamlet! ‘Here it is I shall at last pass from the world of the living, but at least I shall have learned much of Fireheart’s creation!’ But shortly after that, several Agneyan knights errant heard her moan and found her struggling in the narrows of the streamlet, and they set to pulling her free. They gave chase to the Shurong wanderers, but knowing the ins and outs of the numerous streamlets better than the knights, they were able to escape.

“‘A great lady of the Seas Below you seem to us!’ said the chief of the knights; ‘and undoubtedly upon some great mission.’

“‘That I am,’ said she. ‘I am come indeed from what you call the Seas Below, and have swum all the length of the Great River to meet its
folk and learn its ways and perhaps, if I am able, to discover what lies at the Edge!’

“The knights wondered at Ashyat’s ardor and strength of will to undertake such a journey. ‘Then come, we Agneyan knights will put you on
the right path. These miscreant Shurongs have led you far from the main currents of the River.’ They told her many tales of the curious folk that inhabit the shores of the lake and indeed of the mischievous Shurong who inhabit the streamlets and creeks of lava beyond the lake. At long last, they came to a ponderous dome and the knights bade Ashyat their farewells: ‘Through that dome flows the Great River once more, onwards to we know not where, but are certain that you will find out in due course!’ And so, on she swam.

“Ever Upwards, farther and farther from Fireheart and the Sea of home. Until at last she came to a nearly congealed lake. She noted that
the magma flowing along the Great River was gradually cooler and indeed here, much of it was in fact frozen or at best sludgy. She met no folk at all
along the shores of this desolate lake, and came across only a few raggedy creatures. At last, she found a dome high in the lake, and here met a
contingent of Magmanauts. She greeted them in the River Queen’s name and they recognised her as a friend.

“‘You have travelled far indeed, scholar Ashyat! For our Queen’s palace lies far below and may only be reached by many long and arduous
journeys. But here you are at last in the congealed magma of Lake Pluton, at the very end of her realms; beyond these gates lie the domains of Welkhan, a fiery king indeed, and lord of the Riversend, beyond which lie marvels living Beings may see, but may never cross over to visit. His is the domain of the Edge, of which I’m sure you’ve heard. You certainly have our leave to pass through the gate, and back in again, friend, should ever pass this way again! Only beware of Welkhan, he is most energetic and liable to unsure whims. Farewell!’

“With these good wishes and warnings, Ashyat swam ever Upwards, the currents of the River now strengthening considerably, and the frozen
expanses beyond the River rumbled and shook most frightfully! At times the currents of the River flowed at an alarmingly fast rate, and Ashyat was only barely able to control her progress and was often buffeted from side to side, and often collided with frozen fragments of crystalised magma.

“At last she found herself swimming in a rather small lake and the folk there wondered at her, calling her an alien or a demon from the
worlds Below. It wasn’t until king Welkhan’s scholar was called for that it became clear Ashyat was no demon nor any kind of alien, though some folk of that place refused to see sense. ‘Well, if it’s Welkhan you’re looking for, he isn’t home at the moment. He’s up in the cone, agitating for a grand eruption. You’re in Vulcan’s Heart now, the cosy center of the volcano, whether you were looking for it or not!’

“‘Well, indeed I suppose I am looking for it, friend scholar. I have journeyed from Fireheart, and the Great Sea down Below, all the way up
the Great River to Vulcan’s Heart. I should dearly like to get up into this cone you speak of and see what is at Riversend!’

“‘Oh, is that all? You swam all the way up here just to leap in the air!?’ The scholar said this with such a tone of boredom that Ashyat was
taken aback. Everyone here has gone up into the cone a time or three to leap into the air above. But they say the Riverfolk down below are strange
fellows; and if you come from some unknown Sea down below them, you must be stranger still! But come, let’s go up to the cone and you shall leap up into the air, if you are able!’

“And with that, Ashyat went in the company of the scholar’s kin high up into the cone of the volcano. The pressure up here was nearly
nonexistent, and Ashyat felt so light she might float away; and the coolth of the magma was most refreshing, almost on the very edge of freezing! And at last, they came up into the cone, and there saw Welkhans and his folk driving upwards towards Riversend and leaping up into what Ashyat concluded must be the ‘air’. She asked the scholar about ‘air’, but he seemed rather uninterested in the topic. ‘Air? Who knows what it is! All we know that we dare not remain in it for long, lest we freeze to death. When you leap into the air, do try to come back down into the cone lake! We shall never be able to rescue you if you miss! You’ll soon freeze and become just another great lump of rock on the slope of the volcano!’

“Ashyat swam down to the very bottom of the lake, and the scholar called for all good folk to clear the way, for who knows how Ashyat
might make her great leap into the Air above Riversend!

“She shoved off from the lake’s bottom and churned in the magma of the cone lake until at last, she shot up into the Air above! There, she
twisted slowly, perceiving far above tiny pinpoints of ankanic radiance amid a diffuse background energy; she wondered how far away those tiny points could be, but she could tell they must be every bit as hot as the Shore Below! She arcked gracefully upwards, and slowly descended again, heading straight down into the cone lake. As she turned and tumbled back down, she could discern weak pinpoints of energetic radiance. Some were quite small, but constant of output. Others varied considerably, and moved around, sometimes together and sometimes apart from one another. Yet they all appeared to move with a purpose, tiny and insignificant — living beings!? — moving upon the dead surface of the frozen Plates? Outside the universe!

“Ashyat said nothing of these thoughts, but charged and breached the lake surface many times, experiencing all she could of the strangeness
Beyond the end of the Great River. At the last, nearly exhausted, she made one last leap, and this time her senses were met not with tiny pinpoints of distant radiance, but a stupendous radiance of ankanic fire directly above the Edge! The roar of her winds could be heard above the currents of energies of the universe below; her radiance encompassed the entire universe and expanded outward into an even greater universe beyond all comprehension.

“And deep within the radiance, Ashyat sensed something at once familiar but also distinct. All living Beings that inhabit the Great Sea know
and experience Fireheart’s great radiance and feel somewhat of her thought and her love for all living things. Now, here, beyond the Edge of the universe as Ashyat had known it to be, was a radiance like Fireheart’s and a will and a love far more encompassing, far older, much deeper. It was as if she were looking directly into the heart and mind of Fireheart’s mother... ‘Could that be? Could that really be?’ These were the only words she would speak when at last settled back down into the lake of Velkhan’s realm, below the volcano.

“‘Sun-touched is what she is,’ said one Being. ‘Haven’t seen a case this bad,’ said another. The scholar spoke at last: ‘Ah, she has touched
Varen’s heart. This is what she has come for; she will soon leave us, swim back down to her own folk and teach them what we’ve known all along!’

“And that was indeed the case. Once Ashyat came to her senses, she sought immediately to leave, but was still weak from all her leaping
exertions; so she spoke much with the scholars and folk of Welkhan’s realm. ‘Who is Varen, and why does she feel so much greater than Fireheart, who you call Yeola? She it is who created the universe and sustains all living things!’

“‘Ah, dweller of the Uttermost Deeps! Your senses have been opened to what lies in the great World Beyond! You’ve been touched by Varen’s
grace and radiance, and it is she who is Yeola’s mother. Down in the World Below, you know only Yeola, whom you call Fireheart, and she is but a daughter and grand-daughter of the great Beings out beyond our little world.’

“‘Perhaps I seemed overly annoyed at what to us is an every day occurrence. But your wonder at our ordinary experience is enlightening!
We will help you understand as much as we may, because your experience has clearly moved you! I can’t even begin to recall how many leaps and how high you made into the air beyond Riversend! We thought for sure you would fall crashing onto the side of the volcano and become lost to us; but that did not happen, and it seems you must in time make your journey back down to the Great Sea of yours!’

“Ashyat rested some time in Welkhan’s domain and learned much from the scholars and folk there; and in time, parted from those folk and
made her long journey back Down along the Great River. She passed through the gates and greeted the first of the Magmanauts, and later visited many folks along the way, some she had med before, others were new to her. And she came at last to Pelle and the scholars of the River Queen and where her own comrades were happily studying and teaching. They greeted her warmly and discussed many things they had learned; and they made plans for what they might do with this new learning.

“‘It will not be easy,’ said Ayaw, one of the leading scholars of the visiting Sea folk. ‘Our scholars are rigid in their teachings, only rarely
accepting of new ideas. Our task will be no easy one! But we may find some success among the younger scholars and the more open-minded.’

“And so it was decided to depart from Pelle and the River Queen and make the long swim home, again accompanied by the Magmanauts.
They determined to call themselves Pellean scholars, for their ideas and teachings were quite at variance to what was taught by the scholars of the Great Sea. And soon enough, they came into that sludgy bay of the Sea and rested for some time among the Diggers, who were delighted that their discoveries led to even more discoveries far up the River. And at last they came home again.

“While a number of their comrades considered the new teachings with favor, others continued to refuse; and it was in this way, friend
Sethelan, that the two schools came into being, the older Nuscuan and the newer Pellean.


“Of course it has now been many long whiles since Ashyat and Ayaw melted back into the flowing Sea, there are those scholars who yet
journey Up the Great River to study with the scholars of the Great Queen. Perhaps one of them will accompany you, if you would care to make the journey and learn for yourself in its fullness how barmy a tale Ashyat’s story really is!” Apaitiyo ended his tale and awaited for Sethelan’s response.

Sethelan only floated in silence for a long while, pondering, judgint this or that aspect of the tale told by his younger friend. At last, he said
only: “Stay with us as long as you please! And then go back to your own home in the Shore Above. I will ponder your words and this tale of scholar
Ashyat. It may be that you will find me greeting you at your abode some time, every bit as courteously as you greeted me here in mine! And then,
perhaps you yourself shall accompany me on a swim along this Great River.”

That was all Apaitiyo could hope for! He was sure that he had no hope of convincing his older friend on one telling of the tale; but perhaps
he could just interest the old scholar enough to come up and see for himself. That is how to win over the hearts and minds of those who refuse to accept a new teaching — engage them and bring them to a place where they may see for themselves what the truth really is! And so began Sethelan’s journey to that place of enlightenment, that place where student teaches master and master becomes again the humble accolyte!

Last edited by elemtilas on 21 Jan 2020 02:54, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

Post by Frislander »

Bloody hell that's long!
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

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Frislander wrote:Bloody hell that's long!
Only 5200+ words! [xD]
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

Post by elemtilas »

[tick]

Daine
Spoiler:
Daine of Darenalliê, on the left & Withwandiê, on the right.
Image
The basic dress of any Daine is a garment called the racca. This can be made from hide or fur or cloth, patterned or plain. Like the sarong, it is simply wrapped around the waist and hitched up with a belt or cord. Often times, the top foot or so of the garment will be drawn up through the belt and then folded down over the belt. Most folks wear a racca at around ankle length or a little less; very rarely shorter than knee-length.

More common in winter time is the mocca or great cloak. It is often made from patchwork furs, though some may be a whole hide. The boy on the right is wearing a mocca with a long chest-piece attached. This extra flap wraps around the neck and is secured at the front by the bronze cloak pin. His wardrobe is augmented by tican, which are fur mittens --- his are a little short, as they are often secured above the elbow --- and pucri which are boots. Daine almost never wear foot coverings of any kind, though once it gets cold enough, the boots and mittens are pulled out for sure!

Spoiler:
Daine of Onutumun
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These Daine are wearing only the racca, cinched up by belts. At their feet, you can see a variety of domestic articles. Most important are the tamac, which is made usually of wood or horn, and is the comb for the hair. The tamac will usually have seven or nine tines that may be rather closely spaced. Another kind of comb is the carman an tyellow, or comb for the feathers. This is the two-pronged fork-like object lying on the floor next to the boy wielding the tamac. This kind of comb will be used to tease the feathers into place and smooth out ruffled wings.

Other articles of note are the sheathed knife, over on the left and a sling pouch and flute over on the right. Daine frequently make their knife and spear blades in the shape of gently curving leaves. They never make absolutely straight swords or daggers. A varhrnu or sling is a handy weapon to carry for quick defense against many creatures and ill-willed people, and they are carried and practiced by Daine of all ages. The siryethseyethwario or flute is most always an end-blown notch-flute, meaning that the sound is produced by forcing a stream of air across a small notch made in the edge of one end of the instrument. Most such instruments have five holes, tuned pentatonically; though some have three or even seven or eight holes.

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Turghun of Onutumun
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Most Turghun living in their own lands wear at most a dhal, a kind of small loincloth wrapped around the waist, however, they usually adopt the fashions of the places they live in when among other kinds of Daine.

Turghun hair is, as a rule, unruly, thick and prone to spikiness. Rare indeed is the Turghun head of hair that has seen the tender minstrations of a tamac!

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Daine of Onutumun
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One thing you'll notice is that Daine do not make or sit in broad-backed chairs the way Men and Teyor do. They find such contrivances to be terribly
uncomfortable and inconvenient to sit upon, and if they must sit in an ordinary chair, they will usually crouch or squat in it with their feet on the seat. In stead, they make and use low backless stools, benches and the like.

In this picture, you see a boy of Onutumun teaching his little brother how to count, using a system of finger counting and comparing that with which toe associates with which number. They are sitting upon a losare, which is a long bench. This particular is nicely made from a long thick plank of hard wood resting on two sturdy pillars.

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Daine of Westmarche
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Every living thing has to eat, and within a more civilised state food comes from the bounty of gardens and farms. Daine eat primarily meats & dairy foods; vegetables and fruits rounding out their diet. Bread and grains constitute a relatively small portion of their food. However, they do grow several kinds of grains and grasses for their animals to eat. Here you can see a cruancu, the great horned beast, which is used as a plough-beast; and a hawallacu, a kind of olifant that is used as a beast of burden.

The boy over on the right has a taggocallou, which is a kind of staff used by herdsmen to guide the animals along. His hat is of a style called
saronggong which serves as both parasol and parapluie. Both boys are wearing isuryo, small pouches strung round their necks in which they keep small trinkets or charms they associate with dear memories.

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Turghun of Westmarche
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Inside the barn here is a gaoanacu, a kind of milch cow and her gatallaiodeners, the milking girl. Some of the milk gotten from the gaoanacu will be drunk as milk, but most of it will be sent to the local creamery to be made into butter and cheese and yoghurt. Note the nicely carved hou-an-hombur, or manger.

Note the inked designs drawn upon the girl's chest. Some folks have confused these for tattoos, but in fact the technique, called tarcuniyo, is more related to the application of mandikâ.

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Mancalio Style Picture of Daine
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Mancalio (sometimes shortened to manco) are richly and extensively illustrated graphic stories written mostly in Westmarche, but also becoming increasingly popular among other Daine and indeed even among Men. Read mostly by girls, who seem to enjoy reading and similar pursuits more than boys, it is not uncommon to find a group of girls around a manco, taking turns reading the story and expounding upon the pictures and story itself. Mancalio make use of both large panels of detailed scene illustrations, but also a kind of highly stylised, whimsical images that depict action, emotion and location. Dialogue is represented with a kind of speech cloud near the speaker's head. Different styles of lettering infer the speaker's mood and emotion. Genres of mancalio girls are typically interested in are historical drama, mystery, horror / thriller, romance and fantasy stories. Some mancalio are geared towards boys, and these typically involve adventure, hunting, sport and ritual warfare as well as mythological and legendary matter. Popular among both boys and girls are traditional legends and histories told in manco format.

Traditionally, a single story was painted and published in a single volume; anymore it has become popular to serialise much longer and more intricate
stories and place one or two episodes of several stories into a smaller volume. This way, a girl's collection of mancalio stories could span several dozens of volumes, each of which contains a chapter of two or three popular stories.

Mancalio are generally printed on cheap paper, though some special editions might be made using better quality stuff. Such works are made with engraved plates, and so avoid the Monsters Under Thy Bedde! phenomenon.

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Daine Musicians
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Music plays a large part in the lives of Daine of all kinds, whether it be singing or playing upon musical instruments or dancing to music. Many very fine orchestras and bands of musicians all over the Eastlands are staffed by Daine and Turghun musicians. Here you can see on the left a Daine boy playing upon an archlute; to his left (our right) are the olifantists. The olifant is a large instrument made from brass or bronze in the shape of a mighty mammoth tusk. Always built in matching pairs, they are operated by eight or nine keys and have a very deep, warm rumbling tone. Note that the olifantists are sitting up on high stools --- this is because the curves of their instruments prevent them from sitting upon low stools as other instrumentalists do, such as the lutenist next to them.

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The Great Queen of Westmarche.
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The Queendom of the Westmarche is ruled by a Great Queen, as are those Daine of Darenalliê in the Holy Hills, and she rules over many
Hundreds or clan territories that owe the realm one hundred warriors in time of war and at all times must maintain vigilance within the realm for any who would despoil it. Each Hundred is in turn ruled by a lesser queen who has charge over the people, herds and settlements in her domain. These lesser queens employ horsemen as landsheriffs who wander the lands and ensure the security of life and livestock from wild beasts or brigands alike. Wars are many in the south with the barbarians there, in whom the Sharrundaine have found spirits equally enamored of fighting. The borders in the north with Ozmand and east with Auntimoany are set by treaty, as neither realm was desirous of long warfare with Daine of any sort. The Westmarch is one of the greatest of the queendoms of Eosphora.

The present Great Queen is Serendarzhan.

The rulers of Daine don’t wear crowns, but do understand the importance of sitting in majesty. The queen of Westmarche sits upon a wooden tripod stool over which have been strewn a number of hides and at her back the wall is hung with hides and decorated ornaments. The present throne of Westmarche dates to 1715 and was the gift of Dar Iren, the Great Queen of Darennalliê in the Holy Hills. Like other queenly stools, it is crafted of stout wood, indeed, hewn and shaped from a great felled oak, and has three carved legs upon it.

In Westmarche, once a Great Queen is elected & acclaimed, she must pass the Test of the Mace, which involves her journeying into the Old City, seeking for the ruins of the imperial palace there. Somewhere within, she will find a very ancient artifact called Hotep's Imperial Mace, a large rod of eisensilver that may only be lifted by the true and duly chosen ruler of the land. She will come out of the old palace with the Mace in hand, show it to the monks and scholars and other folk that have journeyed to bear witness. Once this is done, she will take the Mace back into the palace and leave it somewhere. Once back in the chief city, she will enter the Queen's House and, in the main hall, sit down upon a very simple oaken stool. Once seated, she is now considered Queen of the realm and will now assume the traditional posture (sitting up straight, ankles crossed (left before right), hands on knees, wings spread elegantly behind her) and get on with the queening already.

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Three landsheriffs or warriors.
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Landsheriffs are those those folk tasked with wandering the borders, marches and back woods of a queenhold in order to watch over all the folk and good beasts of the realm. They will hunt down and evict any rampaging beast or roving brigand they may find; should any barbarian warband seek to attack a queenhold, it is the landsheriffs that will fight them off or call up the hundred's warriors to join the affray. They also have the power to admit or turn away travellers and redirect would-be migrants.

Most landsheriffs are boys, although girls are not barred from serving. They may not, however, serve as herzog of the sheriffs. Only a boy may be herzog. In this picture, we see on the left a sheriff of Westmarche, in the center a sheriff of Darennalliê and on the right a sheriff of Withwandiê.

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Turghun of Onutumun.
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Turghun, as is well known, are a mixed race, in origin from unions between male Hotai and female Daine. They rarely get along in Hotai society, and those that aren't killed as youths generally seek to escape their first homes. Many wander alone or in small bands and often take up the occupation of hunting Hotai, whom they see as dire enemies. They do make excellent hunters, trackers and warriors. But their true skills are of the most un-Hotai imaginable. For Turghun are natural gardeners and herders, and more strangely, given their somewhat untidy & reckless natures, many are natural architects and factitioners. They can often look an intricate object or mechanism one time in passing and later reconstruct and improve upon that device in a most startling manner. Many Turghun makers have made stunning objects of great beauty in bronze, silver and platinum.
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

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Daine

The Daine are, by numbers, the most numerous of the peoples of the World and like the eldest race, the Teyor, they are also among the Unfallen. Daine have variously been worshipped as gods, disregarded as fallen angels, adored as earth angels, held as slaves and been regarded as wise teachers by Men down through the ages. Though much younger, as a race, than the Teyor, they are accounted one of the elder speaking races of the World.

There are three basic "types" of Daine. First, and numerically superior, are Tana, which is their native name for themselves and is the group being described below. Next are Turghun, who we've met somewhat already, who are a mestizo race between Tana and Hotai. Finally are the least common of the three, the Mahrag, or so-called "dog-faced" Daine.

Physically, they are beautiful of face and graceful of body. They tend towards the willowy end of slender, are most often gracile of build. Most Daine average about six to seven feet in height, though some kindreds come up to about four feet or so on average. Their heads are typically long and narrow and well proportioned; their faces are beautifully shaped, mostly oval or heart shaped, like those of Teyor or Men but of greater beauty and proportion than the latter's. Their eyes may be wide or slightly tilted and come in a great variety of colors. Many are polychromic. Their hair color varies considerably, and is often patterned --- some individuals have light hair on one side of their head and body, and darker hair on the other side. Body hair is very rare in females and sparse in males. Very many Daine have what are called "manes": long hair that continues down the nape of the neck, along the cervical and thoracic spine and down to where the wings join the back. There these hairs shorten and merge with the short scapular feathers.

Their limbs are long and slender as are their hands and feet. Their hands and feet each have five digits, in the usual assortment of fingers and thumbs, which are typically longish and slender; their toes are typically straight and longer than those of Men or Teor. Their fingers are quite adept and easily take to any craft that requires precision skill. Even their toes are quick and many Daine can move them independently and grasp some objects like small stones or wooden balls with their toes.

The most obvious and distinguishing feature is of course their wings. All Daine have two wings, and the primary color of their feathers typically complements the color of their hair. That is, a red haired Daine will have feathers that are predominantly shades of red; though black, green, blue and other shades may also be found, especially in the smaller feathers. Girls typically have shorter wings: the wing-wrist is about level with their eyes, and the longest feathers typically reach as far as their knees. Whereas for boys, the wing-wrist is often three to six inches above the crown of their heads and the longest feathers typically reach as far as their ankles. The long distal joint, or wing-hand, of girls' wings typically curves slightly inward; on boys, the same joint is usually fairly straight, though sometimes curves outward slightly. This latter is considered rather attractive. All Daine like to keep their feathers well preened, and they make various tools to accomplish the task. Relatives and friends spend not a little time in grooming each others wings and hair.

Daine skin color varies somewhat, from truly white (white pigment) to pale (pigmentless) to moderately pigmented (which they call "nut brown", the approximate tone of walnut shells). Truly white skinned Daine do not become tanned in the sun of summer, but the others do to varying degrees.

Most Daine have two breasts with nipples that vary somewhat in size, from perhaps two to three inches in diameter (girls typically have larger nipples). Most girls have ordinarily small breasts that engorge and swell considerably, perhaps two to three times their normal volume, during pregnancy and then revert to normal after the child is weaned. In shape, they are typically rounded or slightly teardrop shaped, and rest higher upon the chest than those of Man. Quite a number of Daine have four breasts, the superior being the larger pair.

Daine girls are color sighted and are able to see slightly into both the infrared and ultraviolet and thus have, apart from their already strange colour pallette, words for these extended hues. Boys are generally monochromats, and can therefore only see shades of reddish-grey, though they too are able to see into the infrared. Their world is one of shades of greyish tint, ameliorated (after the way of the World) by a deeper sense of, well, depth or clarity of image in their daytime or bright vision. They also have sharp twilight vision and broad night / dark vision that females lack. So naturally, when Daine girls go on and on about the hue of this or that flower, the boys really are totally clueless. Her world is dazzlingly colorful, a riot of hue and timbre, whereas his is depthfully shaded and at best, for a very few males, wanhuesome. These latter few can maybe see a very slight bit of washed-out red. Kind of like very old sepia toned photos or hand-colored pictures where a washed-out red is allows to stand in contrast to the grey tones of the rest of the image.

Daine in general are credited with having good singing voices, and they sing very frequently. While among Men it is common practice to divide the human vocal range into soprano, alto, tenor and bass, a much narrower range must be applied to the Daine. Most boys have tenor voices and most girls have alto voices. A very few would be able to sing baritone or low soprano parts. They find the very high and very low voices of Men a little disconcerting.

Daine are a magical race in that they are capable of innate manipulation of thaumic forces. Some Daine are capable of shapeshifting and are able to change the form of their bodies into something else, typically a beast of some sort. Others are senders and are able to send some part of their spirit riding along with the spirit of some animal, such as a bird or even a fish or dog. Native ability requires rigorous training and constant practice in order for a Daine to become proficient at concentrating and manipulating the dwimmery.

Daine come in the usual varieties of male and female, though there are two minor third genders that deserve attention. It is possible for a genotypic male to become a phenotypic female under certain circumstances, though all involve some sort of injury or destruction of the testes. Regardless of the timing or circumstances, the process is called "the Change" and is the cause of several major reworkings of the boy's body over a period of about a month. Any body hair will quickly disappear, followed by the resorption of the male genitalia which are reformed into a pseudovagina. Lastly, breasts begin to develop. The psychological trauma is at times too much to bear, and is often the cause of suicides, especially among younger boys who undergo the Change. The personality and general physiology are not affected -- these boy-girls continue to think and behave as normal boys, though in time many adapt some of their behaviours to a more female norm. Very few are ever able to "pass" for a normal geno-phynotypic girl, however.

Daine as a rule are very hardy and wear only clothing from about the waist down, regardless of gender or age or specific location. When they were first discovered by the Teyor (the oldest race of people known in the World), all the Daine were naked and it took a long while to convince them that clothing was a Good Idea. Only in the winter time did they wear clothing of any kind; but at all times of year, they wore jewlery and body paint in fantastic designs. Even now, Daine only wear clothing because of its decorative potential; and rarely is it more than a stylish wrap around the waist, much like a sarong. In the Eastlands, britches are ubiquitous, in addition to sarongs. Most especial are a kind of knee-length jodhpurs which are paired with Bierberry's particoloured stockings without toes in. Terribly popular. Britches (and stockings) are considered outlandish the further west you go. When Eastlanders first started appearing in the Uttermost West in their flying machines, the local Daine of those lands thought they were quite the odd fellows indeed, what with their long knit scarves (garishly coloured, of course!), peaked caps, knee-length pantaloons and Bierberry's own. Like green, yellow, purple and blue bedight pirates!

Men don't like to admit it, but Daine are very intelligent, inquisitive and have stored up a good deal of wisdom over their long history. Men have shown themselves to be great engineers and builders, but Daine are no less capable in those areas. And indeed they have rapidly outpaced Men in the application of thaumology to everyday life. Even the great works based on the distillation of the spirits of Elektra City that can now be found all over Auntimoany are no more than the reinvention of ancient Daine dwimmery. Only the Daine have the best techniques for crafting good quality homunculus motivators. Daine have invented several kinds of vehicles that rely on this form of motive power: a kind of "horseless horse", basically a hobby-horse on two wheels and a wee golem churning away at the drive wheel; the "poteriovelox" which is a sort of bamboo and wickerwork bird that can fly in the airs above Gea; and also the "flying djong", a kind of sailing vessel and balloon contraption that plies the winds above forest and meadow alike.
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

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Wûgiyo
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

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Some interesting technology found in The World

In the World there are two basic streams of what we'd *here* call "technology" -- one is ordinary technology which, as *here*, relies on the manipulation of familiar natural forces to get work done, the other is thaumology, which relies, still, on the manipulation of a natural force, in this case dwimmery, or magic, to get work done. Thaumology is not the same as three old crones mixing magical reagents in a cauldron while gossiping about their grandkids and then casting the resultant spell against the intended target. Rather, thaumology is the marriage of magic as a natural force with contraptions that contain other perfectly ordinary components. Some machines in the World are thus completely technological while others are pure dwimmercraft but many inhabit the middle ground of being thaumological in nature.
The Farspeaker
Take for example the farspeaker: you're an up and coming Man of Auntimoany in the "business" world and want to talk with a "business associate" across town, so in stead of hiring a sedan chair and going over to your "friend's" office, you sit down at your desk in front of an ornate oaken box with a pressed bronze horn sticking out of it. You tap on the horn a few times with a small wand of brass, but nothing seems to happen. Becoming impatient, you start to yell into the bronze horn: "All right you lazy little buggers! Put your smokes away now, I want to holler over to Wandalf's toot sweet, so get yourselves in motion!"

Emanating from the horn comes a bit of a tinny voice that replies, a little too sarcastically for all the money you laid out for this thaumological Wonder of the Age (having laid out no less than forty dalers for those fancy capital letters!): "Ease off lordship! Sfartz was in the loo, so keep your sarong on! We gots our Rights doncha know! Anyway, we live to serve, and shall now holler over to friend Wandalf!"

You hear some random clicking and clacking noises within the box and soon enough a fairly convincing replica of Wandalf's voice begins to waft out of the bronze horn...

You've just placed what passes for a telephone call in Auntimoany! The farspeaking system relies on small thaumically impressed imps, a kind of relatively harmless sprite that have been discovered to be terribly useful at Making Things of a Thaumological Nature Go. The imps tap on the ends of bronze wires with wee little brass hammers using a kind of poly-laminal code, very similar to morse code but denser. A good quality set-up will have four or eight imps, each able to manipulate four hammers. Thus the send and receive capacity is 32 little bits of code going in and out on the wires. In such a system, one imp will be responsible for setting the coded message's tempo and modulation (thus allowing the receiving imps to filter out all the other competing messages zinging through the system) another will send your words in code while remaining imps send "data" -- regarding your tone of voice, speed and modulation of speech, other sounds in the environment, etc. The more imps both call parties have in their farspeaking sets, the higher the resolution on account of there being more data from which to reconstruct a more accurate rendering of the voices. The best (and therefore most expensive) sets at present have 32 imps and two bronze horns: the sound production is very good indeed and would be very reminiscent of a good quality 78rpm record *here*.
Lamps that Require No Lucifers
Not too long ago, some clever fellow sorted out how to destill the Spirits of Elektra City into a force called djuus which may be put to practical use in a number of thaumological and technological devices. Everyone knows that certain kinds of salamanders have long been used by healers to restart the heart of someone who has just died, and that these salamanders produce small shock of lightning to do it when the healer strikes the beasties upon the head with a small wand of hazel wood.

By serendipity, it was discovered that if the salamanders are only very gently tapped, they emit a very small shock of lightning; and it was this discovery that eventually led to the taming of the Spirits. Specially bred salamanders are paired based on size and placed in a small cage attached to a bat tree -- a kind of wooden pole with cross-arms that diurnal bats are in the habit of roosting. Copper wiring is attached to bronze plates on the floor of the cage, one plate contacting the forepaws and one plate contacting the hindpaws of the salamander, and then run down into the building below. Attached to the cage are small thaumological Imp- or homunculus-motivated devices that consist of a small wheel with feathers attached along its edge. As the imp or tiny homunculus turns the wheel at a predetermined rate, the feathers brush against the salamanders, which mildly irritate the beasties. Rather than discharging their stored up Spirits of Elektra City all at once, as happens when they are startled by being struck by a hazel wand, they are only mildly irritated and begin to emit a low powered but steady flow of djuus -- perfect for illuminating a luciferescent orb or powering a small cooking ring or decorative music box.

Such systems are quite expensive, so the lucifermen have no need to fear much loss of trade yet!
Dendrothaumology
One form of thaumology the Daine have perfected is the careful cultivation of iman (plants and plant-like beings) into large structures. There are various means by which iman-beings can be encouraged to grow into desired shapes, but the most common seems to be singing to them. It is almost as if the iman-being "hears" the song and grows itself into the shape described by the song. For example, the Queen has decided to commission a birdbath for one of the city's gardens. The garden already has some beautiful stone birdbaths and fountains, but she would like one in wood, and has thus engaged your services as an artificer. You've decided that carving a large bowl would yield a beautiful birdbath, but dead stone and wood do not seem in keeping with the lush growth of living plants! Therefore you decide to cultivate a living birdbath for the garden...

Obviously, for a water vessel, you will need strength of material, so something woody will be in order; you don't want it to get too big, so something
shrubbier than treey will be in order. Having determined the basic structure, you will select an appropriate seedling and bring it to your workshop. There, you carefully transfer the seedling to a nice pot and, well, you begin singing to it! Your song is one of birds on the wing, flying in from far away on a hot summer day, seeking for the cool verdure of the Queen's garden, finding at last a beautiful birdbath cool and refreshing! Your song is one of bowlness, dishosity and containerdom, of gracefully sloping sides, of round dimensions and stout pedistality! Your song is one of cool waters, the flow of xylem and phloem, of cool freshets and the gentle babbling of a bosky falls!

Eventually, the little shrubby plant begins to bulge in the middle; it strengthens in the good soil and your sure-worded singing gives it encouragement to grow in the direction you wish for it. As it gets bigger, it's time to transplant it to its final location, and happily you've already talked with the gardener, who has prepared an appropriate location. Once in place, you must continue to visit it for regular waterings and singing it into its final shape. By now you notice that the bulge is flattening, the bark is becoming fine and smooth, the graceful curve of the bowl is taking shape, its lip turning back, its depth just perfect for the wingweary to enjoy a happy and peaceful splash about! Soon enough, the bowl is hard and smooth and about three feet across on a stout trunk about two feet off the ground. Fresh water is drawn up from the cool earth and dribbles out through small portals in the two main stems that rise from the center of the bowl, flowing down, falling dribbling into the bowl with a merry song of plishing and plashing! Above all, a canopy of delicate leaves, narrow feathery fernlings forms a cool shade against the heat of the noontide Sun; in time small deep purple florets appear, emitting a delicious odor reminiscent of marcanberries -- the Queen's favorites! Birds, toothy and wantoothy alike, have come from all corners of the county to dance and play in the garden, enjoying the cool waters of the garden bath, happily shaded from Sun and hunting raptor alike!
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

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On the Thaumological Application of Salamanders

Introduction
There are two general kinds of salamander, the wet and the dry. Wet salamanders are those tiny creatures often found skulking about under damp rocks and in leafmold alongside watercourses. Dry salamanders begin life as creatures of water, for they lay their eggs in watercourses and in damp spaces. However, once grown, they leave the water and seek out sunny places in which to bask. Most grow to no more than six or eight inches, but some dry salamanders can grow to a couple feet long. They are brightly coloured animals, often displaying bizarre swirls of blue-green or yellow or orange.

They spend their days sunning on an exposed rock, and at night they discharge extra energy as bursts of light. They use electric shocks as a defense mechanism. Should a predator be stupid enough to pick one up in his mouth, the salamander will shock him -- a lesson few predators forget in a hurry.

They subsist on sunlight and only very rarely move once they've found a nice spot in the sunlight.

Along either side of their backs and bellies, there are dazzling patterns of coloured spots and whirls that mark where the shocks emanate from. The brightly coloured parts absorb sunlight and the darker swirly lines emit shocks.

The shock energy can be used for a variety of purposes, from healing to weapons. It is also being harnessed as a clean and readily renewable source of energy. Two kinds of charge are emitted, called "right" and "left", and the combination of these charges seems to interfere with bodily functions such as the movement of the heart. This is why a large shock can result in death; but even lesser shocks are quite perilous.

Salamanders also emit a low, smooth kind of charge called "direct" because it can directly stimulate the illumination of the luciferescent orb. This is the kind of Spirits of Elektra City that are being harnessed by elektrothaumicians, thaumologists who have delved into the arts of distillation of Spirits of Elektra City.
An Extract from De Salamandaribus by the eminent philosopher Ludovic Walwanicus

The dry or common electric salamander is a hardy beastie not prone to the maladies and complaints many other kinds of salamander and pixie drakes suffer from. Indeed, one of the chief complaints these animals suffer from is phosphorrhea, or the sudden and unexpected efflux of Spirits of Elektra City, combined with efflux of a phorphorent kind. The normal daily cycle of the salamander largely involves sunning itself on a nice warm rock during the day. After sunset, the warmth and light that the salamander has collected during the day is absorbed into the animal's body; and any waste energy is emitted as a low, dim glowing of light. This process is called ephosphoration, and is part of the normal cycle, lasting from several minutes to perhaps a half an hour. Indeed thousands can be seen along the banks of most rivers and more up in the hinterlands. A salamander rarely moves any distance at all, once it finds a cosy rock to perch upon, and if it does move it is almost always in order to catch the angle of the sun better. Here in the northern lands of the World, this motion has been noted by the Wise and is called of them the "seasonal migration" of the salamander, as it wanders perhaps six inches or even a foot -- and in some rare cases as much as an ell -- in order to find a better angle to bask from.

Phosphorrhea on the other hand consists of radiant and brilliant bursts of light and wild shocks of Spirits in a dysfunctional fashion, especially during the daytime when healthy salamnders never ephosporate, but can happen at night as well. This random series of energetic bursts can last for several hours, and if left untreated can become a chronic condition in the salamander that will eventually lead to the animal's decline in health and ultimate death.

The immediate cause of phosphorrhea is thought to be light malabsorbtion coupled with phosphoroconstipation -- the salamander simply doesn't
ephosporate properly and begins to store excess amounts of energy in its body. When the critical mass is reached, the animal has no choice but to
violently radiate that stored energy as random bursts of light and Spirits.

The condition can be, and often is, stress induced. If the local salamander colony is becoming too crowded or if the salamander is overstimulated, this malady can easily result. In the wild, it is thought that the offending salamander's phosphorrhea is a kind of defence mechanism. Salamanders near the offender have been known to shuffle away a little or turn away from the source of the offensive light bursts. Once given a little room, the ill salamander generally calms down after a few days and returns to its normal cycle of absorption and ephosphoration.

In captivity, such as is now common in Auntimoany and many other places of the Eastlands, the acts of capturing and transporting salamanders can also stress the animals and cause them to flux abnormally. Of course, overcrowding of the salamanders in the transportation crate will also stress the animals. Once installed in cages upon the bat tree, the salamanders can also be crowded or misaligned, the stresses of which can cause phosphorrea.

The single best treatment for the salamander suffering from phosphorrea is isolation until it calms down, usually for a period of three to five days.
Improperly aligned salamanders ought to be seen to by a competent fangshew monk well versed in that sublime art of ubication. Newly captured salamanders should be routinely isolated for several days before installation upon a bat tree. Once the isolation period is finished, slowly and gently introduce the salamander to its cage and let it rest covered for a short while before it begins sunning. Certainly do not let the Imp overstimulate the salamander for about a week after installation, and it is best to keep the Imps from even toucing it at all, for the first day or so.

Installation should be carefully managed so as not to jar the salamanders and their cages should be placed so that the salamanders are aligned nose to tail (also known as north to south orientation). When transporting to the job site, salamanders should be kept in individual crates and should be kept out of direct sunlight. During transit, salamanders need to be sunned at least every fortnight. Once installed and settled, the salamanders should be allowed their natural course of sunning and ephosphoration for about a week before engaging the Imp motivated stimulators.

Salamanders don't mind cold, even snow and ice, but it should be noted that the weakened sun of Winter cuts the salamanders' power output by about a quarter to a third. Many installations call for or allow a few "extra" salamanders for use in Winter. Some electrothaumicians recommend the purchase and installation of a full compliment of salamanders plus a few extras -- they will provide all the Spirits of Elektra City needed during the Winter months, plus the salamanders can be "rotated" during the Summer months. That is, for one or two months, six out of ten can be farmed for their Spirits while the others are resting; then for the next month or two, the rested salamanders can be swapped in and some previously active ones can be allowed to rest.

Heavy rain, sleet or certainly hail can disturb salamanders, causing them much stress. In the wild, salamanders will simply slip off their rocky perches and seek shelter under rocks or in crevasses. Captured salamanders inhabiting exposed cages high up in a bat tree have nowhere to go. They can drown if the cage has no drainage; sleet and hail can kill a salamander by blunt force. Even light precipitation can induce a salamander to discharge with a shock that can cause the phosphorescent globe to fail or rupture, or even in more serious cases cause the Imp to dissipate entirely. Wires can become overloaded and set fire to the wooden casing. Therefore, salamander cages should have glass rooves and eaves. This simple (though more expensive) expedient can prevent fires and the untimely deaths of the salamanders. The Imps also appreciate the extra protection from the weather.
A possible improvement on this thaumology is the use of a small cadre of salamanders, perhaps only two or three, housed in fancy glass cages with
rooves made from lenses and that have tilted rock floors and that are slightly rotated by Imps during the day so that the salamander is exposed to a much higher than maximum amount of sunlight in all seasons. The cost of the cages is much higher up front, but seems to pay off by requiring far fewer salamanders and the few salamanders used in the set up can distill more Spirits of Elektra City per salamander-hour than standard set-ups.
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

Post by elemtilas »

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I am Road
Unmeasured my length
by stades or rods or paces
Many feet tread my stones
bare or shod or hooved
Old am I in count of years or
ages of stars above
Here was I before ever Daine or
Man or Firstborn came
Here was I before weary traveller by
sledge or sleigh or car
or waggon plodding came
I go with most but little way
they walk upon me for a day
and depart me when they may
Yet some I go with from East to West
from Suns rising over distant sea
to her red faced journey to rest
I go with you where e’re you go
on by rock and tree
over river broad and mountain high
in snows of winter or springtide blows
I go with you where e’re you go
and when at last you cease to roam
I go with you back to your home
Unmeasured my length
in distance of time or space
I am Road
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

Post by elemtilas »

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A Most Handy Device: the Ichthioscopion

The Ichthioscopion is a Class II thaumic device, invented by Thomm Tumm of Angera in the late 1700s, for the purpose of finding things. In
shape, it is a brass box made in the shape of a fish with an engraved lid and often inscribed around the outside.

Inside is a small post of silver upon which is set a sharp pin of brass and resting upon the pin is a slender needle of iron secured to a thin brass fish with
small bits of light wood such as cork at either end. The chamber of the box is filled with water sufficient to allow the fish to float upon the surface, but not
so much that the fish will become disengaged from the brass pin. Once done, the following prayer is recited, inserting the name of the thing one wishes to
find.

Fish, Fish, Mar Antun's Fish,
I wish and please don't mind:
my nakvarat I'd like to find.


Now where, oh where has my nakvarat gone?
Now where, oh where can it be?
With its this and and its that and hither or yon
Now where, oh where can it be?


Fish, Fish, Mar Antun's Fish,
Thank you truly and thank you kind:
my nakvarat for to find!


The floating needle will bob about upon the surface of the water and eventually come to rest in a particular orientation. All that is now required is for one
to search the vicinity in the direction Mar Antun's Fish directs one to look. Some experimentation was conducted in the early 1800s by the University of
Auntimoany's Department of Applied Dwimmery into the capabilities of the device, in the hopes of using it to uncover hidden treasures or find lost persons.
The prayers and dwimmery the devices are imbued with, however, are relatively weak and the practical range of the device is only about forty feet in any
direction. Unless one happens to be very close to a missing person or hidden treasure, the Ichthioscopion will be nearly useless! However, the devices
continue to find use as reliable helps around the house when it comes to finding misplaced stockings or waylaid household articles.
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

Post by Khemehekis »

elemtilas wrote: I am Dail, called Blackwolf and this is how I won the name. I came of age in the winter time, and it was the coldest and harshest that ever was in the memory of my kin. It was so cold and the wind blew so hard that little animals would freeze solid right in their tracks and even a fire built upon a block of ice wouldn’t melt it! On my night, the night I must go and hunt on my own for the first time, moons and stars alike were hidden behind the clouds and nothing could be seen at all.
The name "Blackwolf" wasn't inspired by a certain banned CBB user, was it?
♂♥♂♀

Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

My Kankonian-English dictionary: 86,336 words and counting

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

Post by elemtilas »

Khemehekis wrote:
elemtilas wrote: I am Dail, called Blackwolf and this is how I won the name. I came of age in the winter time, and it was the coldest and harshest that ever was in the memory of my kin. It was so cold and the wind blew so hard that little animals would freeze solid right in their tracks and even a fire built upon a block of ice wouldn’t melt it! On my night, the night I must go and hunt on my own for the first time, moons and stars alike were hidden behind the clouds and nothing could be seen at all.
The name "Blackwolf" wasn't inspired by a certain banned CBB user, was it?
Quite the character, it seems, though her rise to enbanment was well before my short while here. No, this story was first written about twenty years ago. "Wolf" (or Horgul in Queranaran) is a common enough name among Daine. Probably about as numerically common John or Bob in English. Horgul-ahn-crhromio is just a variant on that theme. Blackwolf, Redwolf, Greywolf --- common names among boys especially. Other color combinations are certainly allowable, even if there aren't m/any wolves so colored. Yellowwolf & Sunwolf are all names, but I am not aware of any yellow furred wolves. Moonwolf and Bluewolf are also names, but at least there is a kindred of deep blue furred wolfkind.
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

Post by elemtilas »

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1 through 15 Lexember 2016
All entries are in Queranaran

1 Lexember 2016

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calangqelthi [-i]; bed box; nook, alcove seat
rel. term(s) --- calangqelthein; to retreat or seclude oneself

Compounded from calamura, sleep and qelethi, tree. Back in the day, Daine often slept in trees. I suppose the idea here is that they've taken the tree into their houses, metaphorically speaking. Calangqelthili can be made from wood or stone or even plastered brick. Such comfy nooks are often decorated with cloth curtains or perhaps tapestries and generally accommodate several members of a family and all their little children. These alcoves afford about the most privacy most Daine will experience in their houses & communities.
2 Lexember 2016

yaombro [-nye]; a low, rounded hillock; bowl; breast; yaombro-ng-qella [-a] a kind of soup spoon or ladle carved & decorated to look like a breast mindaleya [-nye]; a broad, expansive forest, often dark and chokingly close, usually fairy and pixie infested
locuala [-nye]; a river
3 Lexember 2016

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ryiwyihrhtas [-sni] blue dragonet

Ryiwyihrhtasni are not actually "scaly" in the sense of reptiles of Earth. On Gea, most reptilians are in some way feathered. The body feathers of any kind of dragon, whether greater or lesser, are indeed tough and thick, yet resemble feathers more than they resemble scales. The blue frills on his neck and limbs are indeed actual feathers of ordinary sort, as are the feathers of his long tail. Notice might also be made of his hands and feet: no claws or talons here, but all four extremities are quite prehensile and well adapted to his native lifestyle of calmly eating fruits and small insects, while occasionally spitting tiny balls of hot plasma at overly interested predators.
4 Lexember 2016

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Left to right:

1. cuapapayo -- rug or cloth beater (made usually from stiff cane)
2. qiqilsec -- stiff broom (broom head is parallel to the handle; bristles made from thin twigs or stiff reeds)
3. wawaysec -- soft broom (broom head is angled to the handle; bristles are made from frayed reeds)
4. salterio -- washing or cleaning rag; bathing cloth
5. rupallayo -- cloth plunger (this one is carved from wood, some are made from sheet bronze)
6. saltuwollo -- wash tub (bronze with iron rings)

Daine (of which Turghun are but one great kindred) rarely make any tool handles that are simply straight. They always make tools and handles that are gracefully pleasing to the eye, ergonomic to the hand and often gently curving or with slightly eccentric swellings or knobs on the end.
6 Lexember 2016

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ro- --- left facing, leftwards; greater, more significant
rosayat --- left eye
rumarat --- left ear
roarburth --- left tusk or canine tooth
rovaryat --- left shoulder
uwashu --- left wing
lemera --- left breast
hrosamben --- left nipple
tuesteria --- left hand
lendo --- left finger
rosughrat --- left nut
lanthin --- left foot
lendo --- left toe

tu- --- right facing, rightwards; lesser, less significant
tusayat --- right eye
tumarat --- right ear
tuarburth --- right canine or tusk
tuasteror --- right shoulder
tlâwshu --- right wing
arrasi --- right breast
tûmmben --- right nipple
micamac --- right hand
gurdo --- right finger
tugaramis --- right nut
corthin --- right foot
gurdo --- right toe

Daine love spatial (and temporal) deixis, and this is certainly reflected in the demonstrative pronouns. The simplest divisions are those of right & left, near & far. Many other distinctions are possible!

woytun indicates a thing right close by, near at hand, and on the speaker's left side while pando indicates the same, only on the right side. And oh, yeah, Daine are levocentric in their orientation. So, they will "get going on the left foot" and have adventures with their "left hand mate" and say things like "my girl is my strong left hand!" Woytun & pando might best be translated as "this" or "this here".

suereyun indicates a thing a little further away, perhaps within reach, perhaps within the immediate vicinity, and is on the speaker's left side while mohrho indicates the same but on the right side.

lostun is a thing "over there in the middle distance, towards the left" while tugano indicates the same, but on the right.

clerstun is a thing "very, very far away indeed, but on the left" while dranno means the same, but on the right.
7 Lexember 2016

Image

momundronu is the keyed olifant horn and is the instrument on the right being played by the Turghun fellow. As you can see, it is a very long horn and is generally made from brass, curved in the form of a great oliphant's tusks with perhaps nine or ten big clapper keys to vent a whole spectrum of delicious bass notes. If you look closely, you'll notice that the momundronu at the far right is bent as a mirror image of the one in the center: it is Tradition for momundronu to be made & played in left-right pairs this way.

reruthio is the instrument on the left, a bass of the long bodied lute family. The reruthio always has three strings, or three doubled strings and is played while seated upon a cushion or low stool. Note should be made: even in The World, the bass players are cool and wear dark smoked lens anteoculars!


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Here is the native Turghun notation for a traditional wedding dance. Tannacchain is a word for a slow, stately dance, and the Turghun wedding dance is indeed a stately affair! Each girl, having found and accepted her partner, composes her own dance and will play it before the marriage ceremony. While she's playing, friends and relations (and her chosen boy) pass by (perhaps to offer their condolences!). Once everyone is in place, she'll stop her music and join the other folk.

Turghun musical notation specifies only pitch and a somewhat vague indication of relative note length. It is up to the performer to devise a pleasing rhythm and pitch shape and ornamentation. I find that this sort of music sounds very well on a treble recorder (large bore) or a low pitched whistle (conical bore, for preference), if you'd like to try playing the music yourself.

Wiriwario is the Queranaran / Tanayan word for any kind of recorder or whistle-like instrument. Siryethseyethwario is their word for any kind of flute-like instrument.
8 Lexember 2016

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An image of the famed Qunabbudrome, the great operating theatre at the Imperial College of Surgery at Auntimoany.

I gave the actual anatomy lesson yesterday with paired opposites. So today just a couple Queranaran words that pretty well describes the goings on here.

t.terhrstay; a gripping fear or gibbering terror
tehonein; to calm down, to be centered, to be at peace with all things and all people
lalayamniya; calm & joyful acceptance of impending death
alogamuin; to be aware of one's own faltering heart; to prepare to set out on one's last adventure in this world
9 Lexember 2016

According to this Daine proverb of the Westmarche, four things make a boy happiest in all the world around:

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primamarsi le gatallaio naquelendariayang
within the bucket --- milk!

manastara le luguryavane natilicuerianye
overflowing the churn --- butter!

Image

primalesa ta ruendesiyun namaharassoyang
spread across the platter --- cheeses!

enmaryena pweencanima
to share all this with --- sweetheart!

quelendaria; milk
tilicueria; butter
maharasso; cheese
10 Lexember 2016

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amareiay; game or pastime (applies not to 'boistrous' games like dart throwing or archery, but rather to 'cognitive' & 'quiet skill' games like board games, cards and so forth)
sampay; dice of any kind
hlurat; "throwing bones" or "tally sticks" --- those long four sided dice; these are dice native to Daine almost everywhere
qennacash; cubic dice --- an innovation of Men; note the use of standard tally notation rather than pips on these dice
nimmarash; diamond shaped --- originated among the Teyor, but in common use by Daine as well
ancash; men, pawns
rintu; marvels
rintullo; alley
sûracay; dominoes
corgay; cards
tqiruq; tiles
turong; ring game
mwalalaraqasain; to play the “quick words game”; sing or recite the syllabary

One version of the quickwords game is best played by twins, each one taking turns to say a word that makes sense with the previous word, and as
absolutely fast as possible; it's a game where quick wits and a kind of telepathic awareness of the other come together in an amazing flow of stream of consciousness ; twins who are good at this can literally tell a story by completing each other's phrases or even words.

Another version is often played by young boys: they put a marvel in their mouth and recite the syllabary. Successive rounds of the game involve more
marvels and a faster pace. This is a very good workout for the tongue. Points are tallied for clarity of speech and not spewing one's marvels all over one's friends!
11 Lexember 2016

Into the Woods...

Image

What sorts of adventures will Meryocabayê encounter once he steps away from the side of the Road?

golatanio; shaman, wise woman, keeper of the forest's secrets and knower of many things hidden to others; her wild red hair belies the calm
within; ignore her wisdom at your peril!
dzannunima; temptress lurking on the edges of inhabited places, (overly) eager to entice a wandering boy to her lair for a wild tumble in the furs --- but a tumble he'll never survive!; ever hungry, ever hunting, she and her irresistible charms are best avoided!
tahaid; a powerful artifact of deep folklorery, usually in the form of a stone basin, often filled with crystal clear or inky black water; dire
consequences
befall those who approach and disturb the tahaid!
puende; elveses; nasty pieces of work; if you catch his red eyes glaring at you from his place of concealment in the undergrowth, run away before he can ensnare you in his ensorcellments! If you're lucky enough to be carrying an iron headed mace or a stout iron dirk in your kit, feel free to use either one on it: the old bromide happens to have a kernel of truth --- the only good elfs is a dead elfs!
irisirasi; one of many kindreds of fairyfolk, isarisiri being another commonly met thede; sometime annoyingly capricious, generally helpful to those who take the time to befriend them; they hate elves and are at times enslaved by their more powerful enemy; ignore their good will at your own detriment!
mereton; a wayside shrine: don't bother the gods inside these places, they're just lifeless stone; a shrine will often offer a seat or place of respite from the weather, many are built near springs or grottoes of good sweet water.
dhayanye; usually means a guardian angel or watchful and protective spirit; among certain Wildings of Siviria, the Alghadaine in particular, it means a border guard --- if you're ever wandering near their territory and you happen across some poor unfortunate fellow dangling from a tree by a spike through his throat or who has been tied to a tree by a stout rope round his neck, this is simply the Alghadaine's not so subtle invitation for all wandering adventurers to bloody well sod off! Unless, of course, you'd like to join the ever growing ranks of their 'border guards'!
pangosullo; mushrooms: when wandering in the woodlands especially, be very careful what mushrooms you pick and how you go about your
delicious task --- you never know when a delicious shroom won't just turn out to be some wee fairy's home, and I can tell you, they do nòt suffer forced evictions very kindly!
ado; last but not least, the Raven, the humble servant of the High Queen of Gea; should our wandering friend find himself peradventure gruesomely slain, it will fall to Ravenkind (and their less couth associates) to ensure the body will cared for. As Tynselyn, one of the more famous Ravens of the Eastlands, might say: bags me the eyes, laddies!
12 Lexember 2016

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rhrathcrhruamuin: bear the allersolitude of the heartshorn

Among Daine, the worst thing a boy can suffer is the loss of his twin, the other half of his heart; hence the appellation "heartshorn" for those whose twins have died. It is no small burden, as sufferers constantly look for the one no longer there, constantly reach out for the comforting presence of one passed beyond all contact. Death is the only sure cure and ones such as this will at times seek just that. Something tells me this fellow isn't wading into the dark waters just to cool his feet...
13 Lexember 2016

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ollafaruil [-l]; a water driven hammer used in bronze smithing; also a martial arts manoeuvre, striking the opponent with both wings (also known as Melodious Bronzesmith Strikes the Anvil with Two Hammers)

In The World, there are no Pokémon I'm aware of, so this will have to do for a Wing Attack! Here, this poor Hotai sod has just been delivered a
striking blow by a Daine warrior that is called ollafaruil and involves the bringing together of the armored wing-wrists in such a way that they
resemble the beating of an anvil with the water hammer. This is a devastating blow. If the tusks strike true, the victim will either bleed out from carotid artery trauma or if the trachea is also punctured, drown in his own blood. Spinal cord trauma is also possible. Hotai have pretty thick skulls, so an attack of this sort on the head or face will be relatively ineffectual.
14 Lexember 2016

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i. turomboath; ankle ring (lit. "ring for the foot")
ij. calcari; arm ring or bracelet
iij. icqari; ear cuff, toe ring, child's ring (lit. "tiny ring")
iiij. houwe-am-marat; eartip sheath
v. tlicarisani; clacky sticks, musical bones; hair sticks
vi. waseriollo; antherthaumic stick pin
vij. maranderi; body painting, in particularly the use of fine dots of dye
15 Lexember 2016

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na-merianain pwe-ena-lincuerem; to paint the letters the sisters are learning

pwe-dene-lulutlalem; their brother is doodling
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

Post by elemtilas »

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16 through 31 Lexember 2016
All entries are in Queranaran

16 Lexember 2016

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taclapata; heavy knit blanket

corthin-n-nico; a boy's foot

uwashu-wang-crhraa; a child's wing

calayeso; trinket box, treasure chest

ancash; men for a game

bettano; writing practice board

ítina; dolly

pucco; heavy leather ball

puggi-nang-harcu; paws of a harcu
17 Lexember 2016

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1. qucurullamsi; the West Thriding Fantail; lays a dark spotted medium to large sized egg
2. waracammsi; the Netherdales Nonny; all bark and no bite, lays a largeish round whitish egg
3. embroruamsi; the Westdales Hennock; lays two to four smallish & longish eggs
4. varrunsi; the West Hill Huntress; lays a whopper of a speckled egg; loves chasing after bugs and tiny critters

5. a henhouse fashioned from stone & clay
6. a henhouse made of wood

mawlhwadal; egg

utruqûn; henhouse
Both kinds of henhouse shown are fitted with access doors at the back so the younglings can nip in and collect the eggs for later use.
18 Lexember 2016

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towwilcenama; the Moult (lit. "they're falling out")
sawanama; growing out (lit. "they're springing up")

Daine don't really get sick with disease, though they can suffer a variety of venomous & parasitic ailments. Feathers don't last for ever, and they do fall out and are replaced from time to time. This is much worse. Every several years, a Daine will undergo towwilcenama, the time of the Greater Moult. For about a month, all told, feathers will fall in their proper order from their sockets, leaving behind itchy wings and a miserable boy indeed! A healer can provide a soothing ointment, but the relief is only temporary! The only sovereign cure for towwilcenama is sawanama, the Regeneration.


Sawanama can refer to any kind of bodily regeneration process, but here refers obviously to the regeneration of a Daine's magnificent panoply of feathers!
19 Lexember 2016

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Saylog; Rime Giant. For Men of the modern world, the Saylog are not even a dim memory; all lore concerning the ages of the Grinding Ice have been handed down by the elder kindreds. Among Men, Saylogs are something akin to bogeymen or bigfeet. Faded and garbled misconstrudels of old legends and dusty histories of ancientry.

But folk they were, and when they roamed wide in the hoary world, they called themselves Yiitay.

Yaatem; the Land of Eversnow; much more than a mere glacier, yaatem is an ice sheet
jiliin; a glacier proper, a slow and steadily grinding river of living ice
Sitalsalin; the Sea of Tears; a glacial lake
Walayjilin; the River of Home; the river that drains a glacial lake
Walaywalay; the Home of the Ancestors; the polar ice cap
Titilalan; a Yiitay personal name; the very last spitting snow shower, the last blow of wind
Yiitay; Rime Giant; the gale howling down all the bitter miles from the Pole
20 Lexember 2016

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Nang ayyo! le-ateh menem-na-rothraumastê!
Ma look! LOC-1.s.masc new-LIAIS-tooth.s.nom

rothraumaste; left incisor tooth
surray; amber
talwarad; neck ring
21 Lexember 2016

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Hairsticks says: wayrram, ehuwhuy! --- oy! hulloa?
Felt cap says: nev-ateh-ng-cowalasen and-yrman satuem? --- can you hear me now?
Imp says: hoy boggo! nem ihh dôf! --- hey you stupid Daine buggers! i hain't deaf!

The farspeaker is an Imp-motivated communication system (class iiij thaumic device) that largely involves hollering into the horn attached to a spiffy wooden box, whilst inside a load of cussing Imps -- rap-a-tap-tat! -- tap out a complex code upon a number of copper wires. At the other end, another load of cussing Imps listen for the faint vibrations rushing down the wire from far away. The faint buzzing whumm-whumm of the wires they translate & transcribe into spoken words.

If you've bought one of the deluxe eight-Imp models, your interlocutor will hear a realistic and lifelike simulacrum of your own voice, wafting as from a great distance. Otherwise, with a lesser four-Imp model, for example, you just get the rather cheesy voice of a cussing Imp relaying your speech. Often with many a hawk-n-spit and 'oh buggerits' interspersed.
22 Lexember 2106

slialla; plain

taltonil; mainly; in large part; manyscore; mickeldeal
23 Lexember 2016

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queocuryosse; the Allermost Deeps
ûnqûnyaram; ankanic fire

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grongcurwencanye; creatures of the allerdeepest Worldsea
queocothoana; inhabitant of the allermost deeps
24 Lexember 2016

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questeonangcrhruacu ; airship (lit. swift and agile flyer)
rascay; rising smoke, fumes or vapour
25 Lexember 2016

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ereviene-an-yirielle [-e]; Winter Queen
rinthehonelle; mid-winter
ruhastain; be dragged into the dim of sadness, especially in Winter

A mid-winter tune of Westmarche.
26 Lexember 2016

lammasiyago

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cacanawin; to raise a keen; to howl in childbirth; to bemoan the death of a baby
lalayamniya; calm & joyful acceptance of impending death
lammasiyago [-ow]; deathsong; a philosophical rumination on one's own approaching death
alogamuin; to be aware of one's own faltering heart; to prepare to set out on one's last adventure in this world
eryo-crhruacanima; soultwin (of a boy); his carmic twin
turorusoruso; right arm in left arm, arm-in-arm

blade pierces my smooth white skin, parts my bones, finds my flowing blood
and-ateh melle-anel-alogamuom --- i am become aware of my own approaching death
my blood flows out of me, soaking into thirsty earth
my hand trembles, touches blade gently
and-bronos-ang-lûrhassô le-endí crhruanacarhrtem --- cold bronze caresses my heart, leaches my body's warmth
pain fills my heart with exquisite ecstasy
and-anel-crhruanye dampam --- my heart thumping rhythmically, ever faster, fluttering

and-ateh-hargam --- i am taking my last breaths
pounding heart stops, too weak to move, my body convulses
my chest heaves once
twice
and-ateh-hargas --- i take my last breath

no more; i fall to rest on warm earth, collapse into her receiving bosom
she welcomes me as she has all my deathbound comrades since the first beating heart fluttered its last

i rise up from the cold dead flesh, the shock of the change wears off
yan-ateh-lalayamniyang --- i look down upon what was once me, rejoicing in my own passing over
dead blue eyes stare into unseen blue skies

beloved girl strokes my unmoving chest; she looks up but can not see me
her eyes fill with tears, her heart broken
and-derí cacanawom --- she raises her keen
le-adonye callaiyuruom --- she sings down the ravens; her song is harsh and beautiful and full of longing
her sweet voice is joined by the ravens'; their voices too rise in song; of death and what follows
beloved girl pulls the blade from my body, removes my adornments, leaves my body for the birds

my flesh, once a strong and graceful body is become ravensfeast
my flesh they gnaw, my eyes they crack; they sing as they feast
my blood they drink and my bright white bones they scatter
upayang at hwarem damo-deni and-salem shinnes --- their feasting done, they sing their thanks to my beloved and take wing

nothing binds me now to Yeola
my heart fills with beloved girl's song, the last mortal words i hear
i journey on alone but watched over
soon i come to the river, fast flowing and treacherous in its deep ravine
eryo-crhruacanimar and-ateh erncrhues --- my soultwin i meet there
no sibling of flesh and and blood she
yet she knows me better than any brother or sister in the land of the dying

we sit side by side away from the water's edge, listening to the raging waters below
she tells me my own tale
she knows my every inmost thought
she knows my every spoken word
she knows my every deed
and her story is the tale of all of them

if she seems beautiful in your eyes, that is my doing, for i have given her her form
if she seems ugly in your eyes, that too is my doing, for i have given her her form
i have shaped the lines of her body with my hands, have sculpted her face with my words, have formed her arms and wings and legs with my thoughts

her tale and my tale told, all of me is laid out for us to see and take up with us
we rise together, as one
we clasp hands, as one
we look into one another's eyes, we know ourself, we are our own reflection
reunited now we embrace and cross the last greensward towards the river's edge

a bridge is there, spanning the chasm, barely visible through the fog rising from the river, high arched and slender
none from the near side know its length or its breadth or whither it leads
nor whether one may pass safely or tumble into the abyss

i turn to my soultwin and smile at her
i know only this last journey is ours to make together

turorusoruso --- arm in arm we take the last step out of the world we knew
turorusoruso --- arm in arm we take the first step into what is to come

27 Lexember 2016

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harku; a large kind of highly intelligent dog-like animal

A good childhood memory this one --- most babies' first words are amam and baba. Mine was harku!
28 Lexember 2016

No picture today: some dark things are best left to the deeper recesses of the imagination.

Vices include:

íruquein; play the strangling game.
dqagudqayein; crack nuts with one’s teeth (easier to do than pronounce!) I would not be at all surprised if this word weren't also a euphemism for cracking nuts with one's teeth!
tinteningnguin; meditate; attain a Restful posture of spirit & mind
toctoqashshuin; "meditate", a humorous euphemism for (usually boys) gathering in the smoking house for a bit of relaxing pipeweed mixed with catnip

Dirty secrets include:

syamay-syamay; generally refers to someone of mixed ancestry (by nó means a dirty secret at all!); the term also refers to the "mixing" of twin siblings. Daine twins are closely bonded, to the point of becoming physically ill if separated. This is okay if the twins are the same gender. But when the twins in question are a boy and a girl --- well, let's just say that sometimes these sets of twins are, ah, véééry closely bonded indeed!
quelendarian; milk
melloscarhrtain; caress with the lips --- an intimate but not necessarily sexual activity done between mother & baby, between close friends or lovers; among Turghun (a kind of Daine), it is a common practice for pregnant girls to, mm, make melloscarhrtain with their boys and get a sip of quelendarian. To nourish the baby, you understand and if you take my meaning. Very folklorical, those Turghun!
29 Lexamber 2016

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tloctlaqamarein; make chit-chat; court
tamaccain; groom or comb out the hair
le-olong lusterain; tistle-tustle in the heather

angmaoam : ronu-didi-Asarayellê-eic Ierennio-eic tloctlaqamar-eng-canil tamacc-ang-canil

EVID : recent.present-VOC-Asarayelle-CONJ Ierennio-CONJ court-CONTIN-CONJ groom-CONTIN-CONJ

You know they say Asarayelle and Ierennio are courting & combing each other!

quayjang!

Ya, right!

anni-anni : and-salmó le-olong-luster-ang : tqaq!

EVID : PRES-3.pl.excl roll.about.in.the.heather-CONTIN : EXCLAM

More like tistle-tustling about in the heather, eh!
30 Lexember 2016


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arcworuvarellemen [-n]; deadfella, zombie fighter, marauding lich warrior

t’quy-t’quy! liyieram : dro-arcworuvarellemengan didi-saya reshyerttara-rnil crhroagara-rnil! yung panconara!

Hey, listen up! You know: zombie lich warriors --- or you whack em with your maces or you hack em with your blades! Don't ever thump em with your fists!

eiyem : nâ-lendi yan-antáy carcar!

True this: they'll just rend your flesh!
31 Lexember 2016

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Daine do not 'makes toasts' after the fashion of Men, though they certainly do call to mind those loved ones who have departed or died or simply wandered away.

longsayanuin; remember fondly; recollect with nostalgia or longing

didi-lileiya na-yram and-ya-sandan-ateh longsayanwar

Dear Lileiyo, you will I now & ever remember...
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

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Beginning Games

Beginning Games are terribly important business to the serious game player. After all, who begins a game can often determine who will win the
game and so great care must be taken to ensure the process is fair. And anyway, it would be a terrible social faux pas to pass over the opening rites of a
game --- it is a thing simply not done! One might, and quite wrongly I might add, think that only young children play games just to determine who shall
start a simple game of Marvels or Bridge to Paradise. But even the wise gaffers of town and city alike will perform with almost religious duty some kind of
Beginning Game -- perhaps Fist and Palm or maybe the Pole Gripping Game. It is said that millennia ago, the Four Immortals, when they began their game
of Ten Thousand Year Go, played best two out of three each of draughts, mills and chess just to determine who should place the first stone for the main
game.

Indeed, children in Auntimoany, whether Daine or Man, blaoman, blaqman, native or foreign-born, learn from an early age how important it is to begin
their games properly; and it is often the case that one of the players will sing a chant very much like the one below, variants of which can be heard on the
lips of young girls and boys on the streets of the City. As is often the case with children playing in the street, the songs and chants they sing are, when
closely examined, entirely too gruesome. In the case of our young boys' Beginning Game, the chant is:
  • Was a girl hight Lilly Wace, she went to get the lily mace;
    when she come back her Mam said nay!, so Lilly thwhacked her in the face!,
    and when the coppers saw the place, of Mam they found but little trace!
    How many thwhacks did Lily thwhack? One, two, three, four, five, five were the thwhacks that Lily gave.

On each beat he'll point to one of his confreres and whoever he points to last gets to start whatever game it is they're going to actually play. In this way,
whatever game is to be played is assured of a fair and equitable start, and at the same time, the memory and infamy of one of the most heinous mace-
murderers in the City's history is perpetrated in that quaintly gruesome fashion that only the minds of children can conceive.
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

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Sweetended Condensed Philosophy

Every culture in the World has its happy exemplars of philosophy-on-a-stick. In Auntimoany, you're like to hear things like these rêdos, or
aphorisms:

swo wônet wahhse se mênô all swo wônet wane se mênô
  • As waxes the moon, also wanes the moon; which is said of the feelings of warmth and new love experienced by newly wed couples. Or in other words,
    give them a month and they’ll soon be out of love again!
Tha qanet thon herse te watnam lîthen, beouten tha ne qanet him beude te utpumpe thon water.
  • You can lead the horse to the fountain, but you can’t bid him pump out the water.
cutiscet for se walfihhsam that that underwith er razen gangat
  • He cooks for the monster who goes around in his house; which somewhat answers to birds of a feather and also by his works.
In Teleran they call wise aphorisms and bromides of that sort by the name mamtar, which answers to our word mantra:

wárssi teyas-ca mess-pa tomas-com wertósswâr.
  • The times change, and we change/are changed with them.
coss-he hâstan-sa-han yesam punerrohati-na; coss-pe hâstan-sa-ut-te yesam punerrohti.
  • What enters your mouth doesn’t defile you; rather what leaves your mouth defiles you.
In Kemeteia and Axiom of the Uttermost West:

lus visa al poujis meita ‘l diccaiasmom; mina visa al puplensias atra ‘l diccaiasmom.
  • Better want with righteousness; less good wealth without righteousness.
lus semodat al cvercare qouen al sam dexere.
  • More blessed to give than to receive.
Although Ania has long since ceased to be a country and its language is no longer spoken, the ancient wisdom literature is still studied and forms the basis
for many a modern folk saying. Such sayings of wisdom are called tcani:

a ptasconumî mîftupon-i-tlupîm; ctto? hiy-s-op’ozrcîr-i-lklamunetta pîw dlimcso?
  • Why does the seeker seek? Has he lost his way?
mpîw pfotuurîma tlotottamat çtcano : ptumpon-i-tlupím cyastsen-i-tlupím.
  • The sharp tongue stabs both the hearer and the speaker.
A couple of Mentolatian sayings:

Qua-rauno his, i-firu og-lamménno; sam-varam rontocu I-dnamnanmos he siyâ-m.
  • Concerning this mystery of the man at him-dying; truly/merely the place of being given birth it is. (i.e., Mankind’s death is truly the place of birth.)
Qua-cabiro: sirt o-canetw og-ronu.
  • As for wealth, contentment of soul is the best.
The older Daine of Westmarche say things like this in their quaint & ancient dialect:

ya de worm de wayyester-bird he nash and de erst-bird he get naught; bet de kees de morrow-mouse he get and de formorrow-mouse he get got!
  • This answers to the early bird gets the worm, but literally means “the early bird got the worm and the later bird got naught; but the later mouse will get
    the cheese and the early mouse will get got!”
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

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Palisander's Paradox was a famous mid 15th century philosophical experiment in temporal awareness involving the shooting of arrows at random people, and then asking them when, precisely, they noticed. Never one to follow the well trodden paths of enquiry when a wackier one was available, Archibald Palisander often found himself at odds with the chancery of the university. Things came to a boil after the experimentation during the 1470-1471 academic year came to the attention of the Arch Chancellor.

The experiment itself had originally been academically sound. However, further study was discontinued by the Regents of the University of Hoopelle when it was discovered that upwards of 85% of Dr. Palisander's subjects had in fact been killed by the research assistants and Palisander himself was presently dismissed. It probably did not help matters that he had used Zombat's Surefire Zombificator on the decedants without consent of the families in order to obtain his data.

The use of the Zombificator upon a fresh decedent results is a kind of animated being that can understand and carry out simple instructions, often of the "kill all that lot of knights" or "stand there smartly like a good chappy and keep the hors d'oeuvres coming" sorts, and all without complaint, respite or calling in sick. Warlords rely heavily on hordes of Zombie warriors, on account of them being so economical to procure, house and train, though they rarely care if their marauding zombie hordes are all that fresh. In fact, a detachment of zombie warriors with missing eyes or broken jaws or ripped open bellies or missing a wing or having ragged bones sticking out at odd angles impart a kind of rakish joie de morir that even ragamuffin hired mercenaries can not quite match. Palisander's position was found untenable by the chancery court when it was discovered that, rather than undoing the spells of binding after the data was retrieved, he was shifting all the Zombies into the grey market and reaping quite a profit on sales.

The paradox, according to surviving records, largely seems to have involved the stretch of time between the victim's first awareness of the approaching arrow and the impending doom it spelled and their ultimate reactions to it. Most, of course, only conceived some evasive action after having actually died. By which time it was already too late. Though the records are incomplete, it appears that, at least when one sees an arrow flying towards oneself, time does in fact stand still. None of the surviving subjects were able to pinpoint by how much; however, all the Zombie respondents were able to offer a more precise enumeration of between 7 and 14 seconds, or and eighth and a quarter of a minute. Just enough time, apparently, to witness one's life flashing before one's eyes and utter "oh sh...!", or some other appropriate last invective before promptly expiring.
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Re: Some Snippets from The World

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A wonder of anient Onutumun is the great Kaleidodrome of the Sunrise Palace. Situated in the gardens that lead up to the dromos of the great house of Olorenyê, a great house of Daine folk, is a series of curious constructions of vine and leaf carved stone, roughly in the shape of small basilicas, but without windows.

The most spectacular is called kaleidoscopion, the lovely shape seer. At the near end is a great window of clear crystal, thought to be quartz, nearly four feet in diameter and set about five feet from the flagstones of the dromos itself.

Peering into the window at most times of day, or during the night, reveals only a vision of muted colours. However, at the rising of the Sun and for several hours thereafter, anyone peering into the kaleidodrome is treated to a marvel of light and motion, on account of the orientation of the structure. For at the far end of the long chamber is a great wheel of clear crystal mounted within three lesser pilot wheels. A kind of water driven mechanism causes the great wheel to slowly turn. And within this wheel of crystal are many thousands of brilliant gems and crystals of all colours and hues suspended within chambers of a thick kind of fluid.

As the wheel turns about, the gems are brought to the top of the chambers whence they slowly and gradually sink again towards the bottom in a graceful and never ending dance of light and hue.

The dromos of the Sunrise Palace is also home to several other wondrous optical devices, each housed within a lavishly decorated stone structure. The panthoramas is another of the wonders. Through the great window of this basilica, one is treated, each hour of the day, to a vision of objects, persons and animals in motion! During one hour, a tree grows from seedling to its full flower and fruiting to leaf fall and collapse. During another hour, a graceful bird takes flight and arcs through the airs. During yet another hour, a nadderwhale stalks the shoals, breaches and dives. During yet another, a girl and boy court and dance. The housing of the spectacle of this wonder rotates during the day as it follows the path of the Sun through the sky. Like the kaleidoscopion, great viewing chambers of wrought crystal move about within great clockwork frames.

Other wonders include the great telescopion and the microscopion and the phantoscopion.
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