Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2009-02-03 07:25 pm
edenfalling) wrote2009-02-03 07:25 pm
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[Meme] things that didn't make it into stories
I am home and bored and "Secrets" is being frustrating, so... meme time!
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askerian: Comment with a story I've written, and I will tell you one thing I knew, learned, or wondered about while writing the story that didn't make it onto the page.
Via
askerian: Comment with a story I've written, and I will tell you one thing I knew, learned, or wondered about while writing the story that didn't make it onto the page.
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Also, I intended for Sakura and Tom to talk a lot more than they did. I particularly wanted them to discuss the relationship of magic and chakra (which in that multiverse are NOT the same thing), and to discuss the organization of the hidden villages vs. the relationship of the Muggle and wizarding societies.
I've already posted my running background file for "The Way of the Apartment Manager," which has a lot of random stuff that was in the back of my mind while I was writing. Some other things, though... hmm... I wrote a Japanese-to-English (and Kishimoto-to-rationality) glossary to keep my terminology straight and to hash out my understanding of various ninja techniques. And when I was writing the celebratory dinner at Taizen's restaurant, I had the damndest time keeping Yukiko from derailing the story into a two-page discussion of Konoha zoning laws. (I seem to have misplaced my notes on that subject, which is a pity; it was an interesting topic, though completely out of place in that scene.)
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I wanted to explain how enameled jewelry is the national style of Veritand, and fine enameled dishes, knick-knacks, jewelry, and whatnot is one of their chief exports, but it wouldn't fit into the plot.
I also worked up a mental backstory for Murzig and Thelistra's grandmother, whose name was, IIRC, Clarice. She really was in love with Murzig, and they at the very least made out both as humans and as dragons (and possibly untransformed as well), but she was more sensible than he was and realized that their relationship was causing political chaos. So when the crown prince of Veritand defeated Gaurim, Clarice went with him willingly (though with regret), and after a while she loved him too. But it was a much less intense love -- he was a much less intense man, for one thing, which was one reason she didn't object to him at first; she figured he'd give her time to get acquainted before pressing his suit, which he did -- and she did resent that the dragons wouldn't try to integrate her so Murzig wouldn't have to sneak around and neglect his duties in order to be with her, which is why she kept the Box of Shadows and did her best to hide it forever.
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The University evolved somewhat organically in my understanding of Firsthome, along with Ekanu. Here's some of what I was thinking back in high school:
---Vinaeo was a great city in Ohiyesa. It never conquered anything, but gained power by marriage, treaty and trade until it dominated its land. The Vinaeans controlled trade routes in their territory, giving rise to their legendary wealth. Their power lasted only 300 years, but their wealth and luxury clung longer. They supported education, and for over two thousand years, Vinaean scholars were the most learned in the world.
---Vinaeo is an ancient city-state in northern Ohiyesa, very close to Arina. For centuries, it was regarded as the center of culture and learning, even after the Estarin Empire spread southward and conquered much of Ohiyesa. Eventually, many Vinaean scholars helped found the University of Estara, which soon surpassed the ancient Academy in Vinaeo.
---Estara is one of the world's first true representative democracies. The city is governed by the Council of Nine, whose members are elected by anyone, male or female, over the age of 21, who has passed the test for citizenship -- this requires a fairly thorough knowledge of the city's constitution, laws, history, and current political situation. Citizens must retake the test every decade, but the city offers free citizenship classes so as not to discriminate too much against the poor; for those who have little time, the public libraries keep books with the latest tests and explanations. Estarans are big believers in education; along with citizenship tests, they maintain public schools through the child's thirteenth year, public libraries in every town and city district, and three universities in addition to the Trinitarian church schools and seminaries.
And Ekanu originally went south to become a bard and possibly learn magic, or maybe to bring magic back to Estara, since it had been lost since the end of Soro Sura's reign and the beginning of the Empire. But I was never very happy with that notion (though I do love the idea of a female ruler being the legendary hero who sleeps and will awaken to defend her people in their hour of direst need, a la King Arthur!), so while the music stayed, bards went out the window, I radically reconceived the nature of magic in this world, and the University gradually wove itself together to give Ekanu a new place to meet Denifar.
Anyway, while a lot of my early exploratory thoughts are now invalid, it's useful to see where ideas come from, and I didn't change the bones of the beast too much. The University was founded in Vinaeo during the height of its power and prosperity. As Vinaeo declined, the University began to establish chapterhouses in other Ohiyesan cities. When the Estarin Empire conquered Vinaeo, the University spread to Estaria, supported by the Church of Three; the Star and the Serpent are, after all, deities of knowledge.
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Chapterhouses offer courses to all in their vicinity, for fairly modest fees. They also employ many specialists and scholars whose services are contracted out for high fees. Those who wish to study full-time must either pay high tuition or swear an oath of service for a certain length of time, during which they are contracted to the University as Scholars.
Ekanu comes to Estara at 15, which is no barrier to the University, since most people officially come of age somewhere between 14 and 18 in Firsthome. She swears to the University and studies music and languages, with the goal of seeing the world. While paying off her pledge, she serves as a sort of traveling trouble-shooter during her service contract, which is how she ends up nominally in charge of starting a new chapterhouse in Shimat-Mek. She also gets time to research music and linguistics in many out-of-the-way places.
Ekanu is valuable to the University because they don't have much hard data on the Domaris before her arrival in Estara. Few Scholars or Masters travel as far north as Mohrad, and none have spent much time on the tundra or the Ice. So her language, Arhadikim, is mostly unrecorded, as are the customs and beliefs of her people. Ekanu becomes the University's primary source.
The University has a muddled authority structure. The Motherhouse in Vinaeo is nominally the seat of authority, but each chapterhouse is largely independent. The Motherhouse is responsible for maintaining contact between the chapterhouses and for keeping track of the general resources of the organization. Each chapterhouse is governed individually, usually by a council of Masters in accordance with charters that are negotiated by University diplomats, local scholars, and the local governments.
When Scholars fulfill their pledged contracts, they become Masters or Mistresses of the University. If they choose to leave the organization, they are Outer Masters, whereas those who stay on as instructors, traveling scholars, or administrators, are Inner Masters. A Master associated with a particular chapterhouse is a Master in Residence, while a traveling one is a Master at Large. Ekanu becomes a Mistress at Large, but isn't always in close contact with the organization; she prefers to travel independently, without official funding, since that frees her of various constraints. (Note, 10/11/08: She does write up some of her experiences when she returns to a chapterhouse, though, and she's usually willing to do flying inspections of chapterhouses and paginariums along her way.)
Denifar Rollesdun is the son of former University employees and has sworn service. He's primarily interested in mathematics, but has interests in music and the properties of sound as well. He also likes to fiddle with mechanical gewgaws, and learns to make instruments along with Ekanu. He spends most of his life in Estara, leaving only to take trips to Gwynorae, with and without Ekanu. (Note: I was wrong about Denifar, which I discovered once I actually began to write him in a story. He's an engineer, or, in Firsthome terms, a mechanist. He cares about math only insofar as it helps him build things, and is a dilettante musician at best.)
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One interesting feature of the University is that different cultures have different attitudes toward research and philosophy; therefore, an exchange of information and beliefs between chapterhouses helps stimulate new ways of thought. Also, people in one area can perform experiments that people in other countries are forbidden to even think of. For example, the circulation of blood has been known for nearly a millennium, since dissection and experimental surgery were perfectly acceptable in Kerabada -- so long as the people in question were criminals of the lower castes -- though the mutilation of corpses or living bodies was abhorrent to Masters in the traditional University centers of Ohiyesa and Arina.
However, this flexibility also causes problems, since many cultures object to anything as opposed to dogmatism as the University. Therefore, though geographic proximity to Vinaeo makes the Kaitaru desert a logical seat for chapterhouses, the University first reached Arina via the much more northern region of Estaria. The Kaitaren peoples are strongly insular and distrust foreign institutions, especially in the highly stratified southern kingdoms.
Furthermore, there is often disagreement within the University itself over the value of particular knowledge, and even whether certain ideas should really be classed as knowledge or mere superstition. There isn't always a universally agreed-upon way to winnow truth from falsehood or coincidence, as the scientific method has not been clearly articulated, nor do all cultures involved in the University agree that reality conforms to such a method. Also, magic does work on Firsthome, which throws a spanner into any strictly scientific attempt to explain the world.
They have a decent grasp of the mechanical portions of medicine -- surgery, blood types, and so on -- but diseases are still a subject of contention, though the value of cleanliness and the existence of microscopic creatures has been proved to most people's satisfaction. Mathematics is advanced through the rough beginnings of calculus, and people have known for millennia that the world is round. They are also reasonably certain it travels around the sun, though some still object to that cosmology. Many mechanical arts are quite advanced, and there's some conception of a theory of elements, though nothing terribly useful.
Gunpowder exists, but is not always used in warfare -- wars tend to be more small-scale than in our world. The Estarin Empire was reasonably effective at imposing the philosophy of limited warfare, along with a worldwide trading language, before its bloody collapse.
Um. I will think out the reasons and implications involved in this some other day, as it's late and my brain has stopped working properly.
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I have decided that gunpowder is a fairly recent discovery for much of the world, though it's been known in Yanomy for a long time. However, the Yanomese didn't use it much, for various reasons. First of all, they didn't have the technology to make guns smaller than a mid-size cannon, and cannons aren't particularly maneuverable or useful in non-siege situations. Few of the Yanomese nations were involved in any sort of siege warfare -- the nomadic Sheng were the key enemy of most countries, and they kept no fortresses. The Sea Countries did build fortresses, but they relied more on fast campaigns and assassinations; it was considered a sign of incompetence if a war dragged on long enough to involve sieges. Merin was unified before the discovery of gunpowder.
The main use of gunpowder was, in fact, making explosive shells with a wide dispersal radius, which were then catapulted at low altitude to startle Sheng horses into bolting and breaking formations. Gunpowder was also used extensively in fireworks (which were sometimes repurposed as anti-cavalry weapons), and occasionally in mining operations (both military and civilian). There have been some experiments with shooting small but deadly fireworks at enemies, but the University tends to frown on that sort of research. Since the University controls or heavily influences a significant portion of the intellectual life of the world, this puts a damper on weapons development.
During Ekanu's life, it begins to occur to people that coal isn't the only potential source of steam power. (Steam engines are a fairly new idea, just developed in the last few generations and still quite inefficient.) They're looking into oils -- fossil fuel, vegetable, and animal -- and a few people have also raised the idea of gunpowder engines. Steel-making technology is still limited, however, which makes a lot of these ideas impractical for the time being.
I've decided that Firsthome is a more globalized society than Earth was at a similar stage of history. This is partly because the continents are closer together -- no huge gaps like the Atlantic and the Pacific (except around Yanomy, which is the least assimilated of the continents) -- and partly because the Estarin Empire was more successful than Rome or China at conquering vast territories, and more lasting than the Mongol Empire. This led to a lot of cross-cultural trading, and the trade routes lasted even after the Empire collapsed as a political entity.
This doesn't mean that the average person in, say, Kemery, either knows or cares much about the world beyond her village and the immediate area, but she depends on trade from places as far away as Kerabada and Nivenos, uses farming techniques learned from Yanomy, raises cattle imported from Tirith Ansam, etc.
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I've been thinking more about the organizational structure of the University, and it occurred to me that there must be a level below the chapterhouses. See, a chapterhouse is like a university campus of our world, which means it takes a fair sized population to support it. But transportation in Firsthome isn't very fast, so what happens to all the people who don't live in cities or near a regional chapterhouse?
So I think that a lot of towns and larger villages have something called a way-house, or a half-house, staffed by one to ten people, which mostly teaches general knowledge and has a small library of books and scrolls on other subjects. The way-houses also serve as public libraries for their areas, for which they charge a small annual fee. Most people who pledge to the University end up teaching in way-houses for the length of their service.
Way-houses are under the jurisdiction of their regional chapterhouses, and are run by communal consensus. Chapterhouses are run by a council -- elected or appointed from the resident Masters -- and headed by a Speaker. The University as a whole is run by the Great Council of the Motherhouse in Vinaeo, which is composed of representatives from the various chapterhouses. Generally the chapterhouses in each region take turns sending Masters to the Great Council.
There are also regional centers which take some of the responsibility of coordination away from the Motherhouse. The Estara chapterhouse is essentially in charge of central and northwestern Arina, just as the Pythas chapterhouse runs the Yanomese University, the Haoshek chapterhouse in Gush runs the Kerabada University, and the Mornach chapterhouse runs the Gwynorae University. These regional centers are sometimes called Sisterhouses.
The Estara chapterhouse is the oldest Sisterhouse, and is the most respected and widely known chapterhouse after the Motherhouse in Vinaeo. (Several Ohiyesan chapterhouses are older, though; they were founded during Vinaeo's political hegemony over the Glass Sea coast, whereas the Estara chapterhouse wasn't founded until several centuries later, once Vinaeo's power declined and the Empire conquered northern Ohiyesa.) The Estara chapterhouse also gets the least challenge from chapterhouses in its area, probably because of its location in the center of the old Estarin Empire. People are used to looking toward Estara as a source of authority, whereas in other regions, national, linguistic, and ethnic tensions can disrupt the chain of authority. Many chapterhouses ignore orders from a Sisterhouse and insist that they only recognize the authority of the Great Council and the Motherhouse in Vinaeo.
This is one reason why the University employs chapterhouse inspectors. They need to make sure that people are listening to each other and working together. That's also why, after spending three years working her way through the Yanomese chapterhouses, Ekanu was ready to avoid the University for three more years.
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While the University attempts to be undogmatic and flexible, and is a great vehicle for cross-cultural fertilization, it's also a powerful agent of stability and a brake on fast social, technological, or political changes. The University controls the education of a significant portion of the world's population. Granted, that education does contain the idea that people should seek knowledge and that change is possible (perhaps even desirable in some cases), but it does tend to instill the belief that people with ideas should develop them within the University. This allows the University to slow and divert unwelcome changes.
Furthermore, because that basic education is very similar worldwide -- allowing for local cultural and linguistic variations -- the University is slowly imposing a monoculture on Firsthome. It's a limited sort of monoculture, restricted to some basic values and technological systems, but it's there, and those values and technologies have been percolating through various cultures and causing interesting ripples and tensions.
Ekanu happens to live during a period when a new technological system -- the steam engine and its related metalworking and mining systems -- is beginning to make its impact felt widely. Here, finally, is a technology that can truly displace a lot of traditional patterns, especially when joined with various mechanical inventions from Yanomy (like water-driven looms) and the factory system pioneered in Kerabada. Naturally this is going to cause a lot of stress.
Saturday, 3/31/07
I don't like the term 'half-house' and 'way-house' is too confusing -- far too easily mistaken for an inn or tavern of sorts -- so I have coined the term 'paginarium' instead. On the rational side, this sounds Latin and scholarly, but the real reason behind the coinage is to let me work around the silliness of saying "Well, if there are chapter-houses, why not page-houses as well? Or even sentence-houses?" while retaining that inspiration in a cockeyed fashion. (The proper plural of paginarium is probably paginaria, but I may use paginariums instead, to avoid the really blatant Latin feel. Estara is not Rome, after all, nor is Vinaeo Venice, though I admit those are significant sources of inspiration!)
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I originally intended "Two Guys and a Girl" to be a short and silly story that took FF7's canonical VERY BAD ENCOUNTER in Nibelheim and played mix-and-match with the events and characterizations. Cloud's the older and more experienced fighter, Tifa's the one with the hopeless crush, Zack felt unwanted as a child and hero-worships Cloud, etc. You can still see that impulse, particularly when Cloud lights the demons' pyre (I couldn't resist the joke of having him nearly burn Nibelheim instead of Sephiroth), but it turned into a more serious story about the awakening of Tifa's social conscience. My stories have a distressingly common tendency to do that sort of thing to me.
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Also, in chapter 10, Mr. Lockheart and Ilsa Scour are discussing the new mine superviser, a Mr. Steerpike, whome Mr. Lockheart describes as 'an ambitious and touchy man.' This is a stealth Gormenghast crossover inserted purely for my own amusement, which is just as well since nobody else seems to have noticed it.
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1. Names
Miria's birth name was Alaiah, a variant of Laiachal, which means 'he loves God.' Al is a name for God, from aleked, or lord, and laiach is love. Alaiah means 'God's love,' or, more specifically, 'God loves her.' The male version would be Alaiachim. The female version of Laiachal would be Laichala. Laiachal is the root of Laikal, Larach, Achal, and Laikam, four Doran names. Laichala is the root of Laikala, Larachine, and Akally. Alaiah is the root of Allia, Alysea, Halla and Alka. Alaiachim is not a name from the Book of Days, and is not used much in the Holy Land; it would be presumptuous. There are no Doran variants.
Miria is the root of Maria, Mary, Marian, Mariana, Mirian, Mirial, Moria, Marylla, Marilys, Maritha, Margalys, Magria, Midaria, Mirda, Marina, and many other names. Marea is the root of Mara, Myrah, Mikara, Michara, Aharae, Harah, and Harai. Mara and Michara/Mikara are surprisingly popular names, considering their source. It is perfectly conceivable for children to be named after Saint Marea Imiret of Minrocheh, who was healed by the Lord and followed him until his death, but her name is generally translated as Maria, just as Miria is generally changed to Maria in translation. So the two are frequently confused.
Saturday, September 27, 2003
Quick pronunciation note: feminine nouns and names are pronounced with the accent on the second syllable of a 3-syllable word. Masculine nouns and names have the accent on the first syllable of a 3-syllable word. This is because the secondary accent in masculine words is always on the last syllable, while in feminine words it's on the second-to-last syllable. So it's Al-ai'-ah and Lai'-ach-chal', Ma-re'-ah and Ah'-ho-maal'.
Most place names are feminine, since women are associated with the home and hearth, while men moved around to hunt or tend flocks and herds, so: Zai In-no'-nal.
This rule only applies to names from the Holy Land and Book of Days.
Monday, September 11, 2006
As I wrote "Finding Marea," some of my thoughts on names changed. Apparently neither Miria nor Marea is usually transliterated to Maria; instead, they remain distinct from each other. I find it amusing that Harai Inosikae, my narrator, is herself named with a (much-removed) variant of Marea. I'm not sure she knows this; she's not a linguistic specialist.
The Adam and Eve equivalents in this world are called Adin and Zefaiah. Adam is apparently derived from the Hebrew word for 'earth' or 'dust.' Eve seems to mean 'life.' Therefore, the first man is named Earth and the first woman is named Life. Adin likewise means 'earth.' Zefaiah, however, doesn't exactly mean 'life;' instead, the name means 'fruitfulness' or 'bounty,' with a connotation of 'graciousness/grace/gift.'
Kos and Dora are loosely equivalent to ancient Greece and Rome, and have correspondingly similar-yet-distinct naming systems. Doran male names tend to end in ON, IM, or IS, and family names end in A or EUS. Kosian names tend to end in OS or IAN, and several family names end in AE or, again, OS. Names from the riverlands sound vaguely Italian -- Challo, Avedura, Fichona, Medaeo, etc. -- and names from the Holy Land and Ochre Varos sound vaguely Biblical and/or Middle Eastern.
2. The Doran Empire
To understand these stories, you need to know a bit about the Doran Empire. It began as the city-state of Dora in northwestern Camia, which grew first to encompass the valley of Norineth and the port of Ultar on the western shore of the Kesric Sea, from which point the Dorans came into conflict with Corsinn, a powerful state on the eastern shore. Eventually the Dorans defeated Corsinn and subjugated most of the coastal regions of the Kesric Sea.
Over the next centuries, Dora expanded until it covered most of Simia -- i.e., the western half of Camia -- either ruling provinces directly or forcing local rulers to swear fealty, pay tribute, and provide men for the Doran armies. The Empire was first ruled by a king and a council of nobles, but this power structure eventually proved unstable as nobles from various regions of the empire worked for conflicting interests and began to demand concessions in return for their military support. To prevent greater civil war, the kings consolidated their power, using both the paid imperial troops and the levies from the subject kingdoms to break the power of the nobles. Hereditary nobility was declared illegal, and rank was assigned on the basis of imperial service. (Nobles' sons did have an advantage getting into imperial service, so the old power structure remained in attenuated form.)
Around the time that the kings were breaking the nobles and declaring themselves emperors, the Church was born in Ochre Varos as one of many strains of Amaalism -- which is more properly called Yagataal, or 'Worship [of] the Lord,' but has been popularly named after its supposed founder, Ahomaal. The destruction of the Temple in Ezippah, which was the heart of Yagataal, brought the Church into prominence, and it began to spread quickly through the Empire. It was a savior religion, one that promised justice and order and blessings upon those who suffered. A lot of people were suffering in those times.
Within two hundred years, the Church had become the official religion of the Empire, replacing the old cult of ruler-worship. Other faiths still clung to their followers, however, and a new evangelical faith was being born in the south along the Great Mother River: the Circle of Kemar, or the Horse-cult. It was to become the third great demon of the Church. (The others were the paganism of the Jenjani and southerners, and the persistent heresies that rose within their own religious tradition.)
3. Harai's numerology
Harai subscribes to a numerology system prevalent in the Empire, which goes like this:
0 = sterility, emptiness, the void
1 = potential, solitude, perfection, the infinite, God
2 = instability, scales, pendulums, arguments, aborted journeys
3 = stability, fellowship, love, the joining of disparate elements
4 = the world, the elements, nature
5 = humanity, the body, union of matter and spirit
6 = a quest, a journey, or a pause along the way
7 = chance, luck, change
8 = foresight, planning, skill
9 = endings, closure, destruction, comprehension
10 = dominion, power, control, fame
11 = innocence, the unknown, the soul, spirituality
12 = perfection, completion, experience, stasis
13 = imbalance, ill-luck, the unnatural, separation of matter and spirit
14 = time, the past, the future
15 = war, strife, anger, parallel elements
16 = return to beginnings, cycles, balance, completed journeys
17 = creation, breaking patterns, risk, glory
Whether numbers are auspicious or not depends on the context. 1, 4, 9, and 16 are particularly important because they're square numbers. Each number has a shadow or mirror, counting inwards toward 9. So 17 mirrors 1, 16 mirrors 2, and so on, until 9 itself mirrors 0, which is set outside the pattern.
Because the system allows two-digit numbers, it's nearly impossible to add things up to equal 1. You almost always get 10 instead. This is, in fact, deliberate, since 1 is such a powerful number. There are alternate numerology systems that only allow single-digit numbers -- these seem to have been brought to Camia by the Jenjani -- but they assign different meanings to the numbers, and are not used in Church scriptures and Circle stories.
4. Cities of the north
Inland, Toren lies at the first fall line on the Erisokos, near the Bannerry Hills; its sister city, Peruthy, sits further into the hills at the junction of the Island Road and the River Road. Sarill sprawls at the northwestern edge of Lake Nacoma, where the Sister joins the Great Mother River. Illeilee is the city at the heart of the riverlands (the watershed of the Sister) that straddles trade routes in the rich farm country. Minrocheh is a port at the western edge of the Mother's delta. And Ochre Varos, a thriving trade city, lies south of Lake Nacoma on the Mother, at the nexus of four trade routes: the Gold Road south to the mountain kingdoms, the Ivory Road southeast to Tuvia, the Silk Road northeast to Qatham'bal, and the Great Trunk Road northwest to Dora, where all roads find their way at last.
Many of the great cities either are or have been capitols of Imperial provinces, except for Kos, which is itself a province. There are no great cities on the southern border of the Empire, since trade with the mountain kingdoms is too sporadic to support them, and there are no great rivers in the southern highlands.
The lands of the Jenjani are divided into five great regions, each of which contains several nations or city-states. Nalus, the northern coastal region, is dominated by the cities of Ninousha, which lies on Qotamir Maqef just east of the Mother's delta, and is a great rival of Minrocheh; and Hethgaj Aboural, at the mouth of the short, wide, mud-choked Vequt River, which flows northwest from the Hajouqati mountains to the Gulf of Shoujoura.
Tuvia, the rugged southeastern highlands, is split into the inland lake country and the narrow coastal plain. The twin cities of the lake country -- Reqouro on the shores of Ifratoum Qaniq and Burati on Qinjad Qaniq -- are the gateway for trade between the Doran Empire and the lands across the Broken Sea. They pay tithes to the Horse Lords of Jana, the central plains region, so their trade is not disrupted too frequently. Ehalom Ulad, nestled in the hills at the joining of the Dehabi and Ulad Serif rivers, and Ganjef Aboural at the mouth of the Dehabi, complete the trade route.
Qatham'bal, or Calaea, the land of silk and salt between the Hajouqati Mountains and the Broken Sea, is mostly desert, sheltered from rain by the high mountains. Rourin'qef, the city of salt, lies on an oasis in that desert, and forms an important stop on the Silk Road, which leads from Ochre Varos to Shajento on the Broken Sea, where people cultivate mulberry trees in walled gardens and grow coffee in the narrow valleys where the northwest winds bring warm water down from the seas above Nalus to ameliorate the harsh desert winds from the west and south. Silk is also produced in Tuvia, but Tuvia's climate is better for farming and so its people are less dependent on trade crops.
Qismena, the city that is not, the abode of magicians, lies hidden deep in Accia, in the heart of the Hajouqati-uq north of the Silk Road. It is spoken of only in whispers, for in Qismena strange things walk the earth under the light of the moon.
5. Religions (part one)
Qabula is the faith of the Jenjani. It is a catch-all religion, containing very few basic elements. The balance is wildly different from region to region and person to person. The constants are the Lord of Storms and the Lady of Horses, also known as Father Sky and Mother Earth. The Bright Lady who protects women in childbirth and the Dark Lord of Death are also universal, though their names and titles vary. Qabula contains thousands of deities, but the average Qabulist only prays to a few dozen. They refer to themselves as Qabuli-uq; they have no single holy book.
Rhonaism is the faith of the southern kingdoms on both sides of the great mountains. Rhonists worship the Goddess and God, Mother Earth and Father Sky. The actual ceremonies of worship vary widely, but there are bedrock similarities. Ceremonies for the Goddess are held in the ancient stone circles with a central altar; ceremonies for God are held in chapels, generally with a cruciform stained-glass window behind the altar. The Rhonists have no name for their religion; they simply call it the faith. They have no holy book per se, but the Book of Rhone, written by the classical theologian Rhiannon of Rhone, is the defining text of their faith. It is a peculiar holy book since it consists largely of essays concerning the hypocrisy and emptiness of all organized religion, including the very faith it defines. The book also contains poetry, discussions of human character, and thoughts on the value of personal faith and the value of rituals in creating a sense of community.
Note, 4/20/06: This is outdated not because the religious descriptions are bad, as such, but because it leaves out the Circle of Kemar, or the Horse-cult, which is the other great religion of the Doran Empire, much though the Church and the imperial government would prefer to ignore its existence. The Circle is an amalgamation of Christian-tinged theology -- particularly a doctrine of salvation, and a strong monotheistic bent -- and older pagan beliefs and practices, particularly communal rites and sacrifices.
Second Note, 5/15/06: It also leaves out the Amaalites (or Zaiyataal -- 'those who worship the Lord') who are this world's version of the Jews... except they aren't nearly as much of an ethnic group as they are in our world. They've become defined more by faith than by birth, perhaps since Simia has a long habit of accepting religions defined more by philosophies and lifestyles than by faith, strictly speaking. Rhonaism and the Circle have a persistent strain of philosophical thought, and a wariness toward unquestioning faith, so the legalistic component of modern Amaalism (or Yagataal -- 'worship of the Lord') fits in well, as do the lifestyle commandments. The faith component -- strict monotheism and a degree of self-abnegation before the will of God -- actually counterbalances the Circle of Kemar better than the Church does, since the Church is, of necessity, Trinitarian, and also holds Miria -- the Mary equivalent -- in high regard.
6. Religions (part two)
Just as Church-folk and Circle-folk call Qabulists 'Jenjani sacrificers,' they call Rhonaists 'southern pagans.' This, I have decided, is because the southern religious traditions aren't really organized enough to have a single name. Also, I've decided that Rhiannon of Rhone was part of the same religious outpouring and mixing that led to the creation of the Church, the Circle, and modern Amaalism. Her attempts to codify southern traditions helped create the sense that there was a single, unified southern religion, and that it had existed for generations before her. Scholars know this is false, but most southerners believe their religion is much older than Rhiannon's writings.
Fourth Note, 3/7/07: While the basic faith of the Doran Empire is Christianity, it's not referred to as such within that world. This is because it would break the 'secondary reality' aspect of the thing. So all through "Finding Marea" I talked about the Church and Church-folk, the Circle and Circle-folk, the Horse-cult and Horse-dancers, and so on. Amaalism and Symbolism are the only two faiths that have standard adjectival names. I suspect that this has some effect on the way people think about religion, but I'm not at all sure what that might be.