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Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: New Climate Map

Posted: Thu May 14, 2020 9:01 am
by Pedant
Pabappa wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 10:41 am
Pedant wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 9:55 am Annoyingly, I'm having difficulty with this new climate map. Ah, well, at least I can post it here…
Note the enlarged areas of warmer climes; Ajjamah is about two degrees hotter on average than Earth, and that has an overall effect on the weather.

https://www.deviantart.com/avatarvyakar ... -841461413
What do the colors mean over the oceans? Is it depth or something else?

I like the map all in all. It's very detailed and I can tell you put a lot of work into it. Assuming the equator is at the center of the map, Im not sure I understand why the climates are so dry on the west side of the southern continent. Is it a cold current like that of Antarctica? I'd think that given there is no Antarctica, Africa might be a better model to follow .... west coast of Africa is drier than one might expect, but not to the level of S America.
Many thanks!
Okay, in answer to both of those:
1) It is indeed depth, but I'm pretty sure it needs a revamp once I figure out how to properly map out tectonic plates underwater. There are at least three major boundary areas that need a bit of exploration…
2) As to that, it's apparently something of a side-effect of the climate shift. Warmer climate means a decrease in marine climate, apparently, and there is indeed a strong cold current going that way. (Looks can be deceiving; the southern continent actually goes as far south as 60º to 70º, while Africa stops considerably before the 40º mark. It's still warmer than Earth, too.)
Hope these help!

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: A New Climate Map

Posted: Thu May 14, 2020 2:03 pm
by sasasha
This is a slight tangent, but I absolutely love the tone of your website, with the 'Let's make something together' vibe.

It's a lovely idea very well delivered, so far. And what I've checked out of the content is great too.

How did you calculate your insolation patterns? Or is it more conceptual and less maths-y (as it certainly would be in my world)?

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: A New Climate Map

Posted: Fri May 15, 2020 7:18 am
by Pedant
sasasha wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 2:03 pm This is a slight tangent, but I absolutely love the tone of your website, with the 'Let's make something together' vibe.

It's a lovely idea very well delivered, so far. And what I've checked out of the content is great too.

How did you calculate your insolation patterns? Or is it more conceptual and less maths-y (as it certainly would be in my world)?
Many thanks indeed!
As to calculating the insolation, I did actually make a calculator at one point which compensated for the longer days and shorter years (and greater axial tilt and greater insolation), and while the solar constant calculator turned out to be fairly accurate I'm still working out the kinks in the insolation calculator. Mostly I just take a place on Earth, assume an increase in light and heat thanks to the proximity of the star and the gases on the planet, lock it onto a similar environment on Ajjamah, and average the temperature and precipitation over seven months instead of twelve. It's not the best system, and I'm planning on a total overhaul once I get the insolation calculator working again, but it works for now, so…

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: A New Climate Map

Posted: Fri May 15, 2020 7:28 am
by bradrn
I’ve just noticed your map you posted — it looks excellent!

If you don’t mind me asking: how did you go about figuring out the climates? I’ve tried doing that in the past for some of my maps, and I’ve never managed to figure out how to do them. (Although admittedly some of that may be perfectionism: right now I’m still stuck on figuring out the plate tectonics for my current map, even though I’ve done enough geology that I really should be able to do them fairly easily.)

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: A New Climate Map

Posted: Sat May 16, 2020 10:49 am
by Pedant
bradrn wrote: Fri May 15, 2020 7:28 am I’ve just noticed your map you posted — it looks excellent!

If you don’t mind me asking: how did you go about figuring out the climates? I’ve tried doing that in the past for some of my maps, and I’ve never managed to figure out how to do them. (Although admittedly some of that may be perfectionism: right now I’m still stuck on figuring out the plate tectonics for my current map, even though I’ve done enough geology that I really should be able to do them fairly easily.)
Thanks, bradrn!
In answer to that: I've been relying on five separate sources (Zompist's Planet Construction Kit, Artifexian's climate videos, Chris Wayan's Alternate Earth series, my old geology textbook from university, and a tool called Mapmaster) for both maps of the Earth and tools that might be used to explain the climate. First things first, do the elevation map; next check the wind patterns; then work out the direction of the currents; after that look at the temperature and humidity; and finally see where those fall in relation to Earthlike climates. Of course, Ajjamah was shifted a bit to the warmer side of things, but that's all useable. Again, I'm trying to work out insolation, but the calculator I'm making for that is on the fritz at the moment (can't get it to understand degrees, I think--as in 360º, not Celsius), so that'll have to wait for another time.
There's always those resources, but I'd be happy to help as well if you'd like.

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: A New Climate Map

Posted: Sat May 16, 2020 7:26 pm
by bradrn
Pedant wrote: Sat May 16, 2020 10:49 am In answer to that: I've been relying on five separate sources (Zompist's Planet Construction Kit, Artifexian's climate videos, Chris Wayan's Alternate Earth series, my old geology textbook from university, and a tool called Mapmaster) for both maps of the Earth and tools that might be used to explain the climate.
I know of the PCK and the Alternate Earth series, but not the others; I’ll have to look into them! I’ve mostly been relying solely on https://astrographer.wordpress.com/book ... -cookbook/.

(By the way, what geology textbook did you use? Mine had nothing that I can remember about climatology, although maybe we just didn’t cover those chapters in the one semester of classes that I did. EDIT: I’ve just checked, and it only has some basics — nothing that would be useful for figuring out a climate.)
First things first, do the elevation map; next check the wind patterns; then work out the direction of the currents; after that look at the temperature and humidity; and finally see where those fall in relation to Earthlike climates. Of course, Ajjamah was shifted a bit to the warmer side of things, but that's all useable. Again, I'm trying to work out insolation, but the calculator I'm making for that is on the fritz at the moment (can't get it to understand degrees, I think--as in 360º, not Celsius), so that'll have to wait for another time.
That’s pretty much what I was doing as well (as recommended by that article I linked).

A question: what’s insolation? I don’t think I’ve encountered the term before.
There's always those resources, but I'd be happy to help as well if you'd like.
Thanks for the offer! Right now I’m just trying to get the plate tectonics to work out, but I’m sure I’ll end up making a post here when I inevitably can’t figure out the climate.

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: Spell Types

Posted: Sat May 16, 2020 9:41 pm
by Pedant
A small detour, to discuss SPELL TYPES:

There are three branches of magic in the world, broadly defined as Perception (Classical Salvian ikyumih), Evocation (hakrālah), and Redirection (ukūtuh). Each of those involves not the creation of spells, but the usage of pre-existing ones, often floating in free-form or else granted by a (maybe helpful) spirit. While there have been other civilizations to use spells, sometimes quite intrinsically entwined with their cultures, few have been quite so…enthusiastic about the process as the Salvians, and so the terminology used here will largely come from Classical Salvian.
  1. Perception is a class all of its own, dealing with the extension of one's senses (or indeed one's person) into different parts of reality. The classic method is increased clarity or range of one or more of the physical senses (a nose like a blood-fox, for example, or else the ability to see multiple places at once). These can also be used to increase the range or complexity of others' senses--or to use them for oneself, or to shut them down completely, or manipulate them.
    Among the stranger uses for perception-magic is the creation and manipulation of visions or hallucinations, which have been used at times to devastating psychological effect (Clockwork Orange ain't got nothing on what the Salvians used to do to enemies of the state) or else to popular applause (who needs movies when you can recreate the special effects with actors and spellwork alone?).
    Perception-magic requires curiousity, a desire to seek out something new, regardless of danger or purpose--and a delight in complexity, in permutations for the sake of permutations.
  2. Evocation is quite simple, really--the connection of oneself with the four-dimensional construct of some object, or indeed some living being, and causing some physical effect (within the bounds of reality of course). The astras (asniyus, singular asnir) used by the ancient Salvian warriors relied on this principle--causing the flesh of one's enemies to be pierced as if by a thousand arrows from the sky with a single shot, for example, or summoning flames that could not be put out by normal means. (Burning bushes? Got you covered.)
    The technical translation of hakrālah is "oath-magic", referring to the contracts created verbally or in writing (or sometimes by mixing blood or spit or some other substance) that bound both parties to actions that were deemed unbreakable. Upon creating a contract, one would have no choice but to follow the rules set by that contract, although the methods could differ. The Salvian government has been relying on such oaths for centuries to keep itself running, and has thankfully introduced a "primary oath" that contract-makers will follow the laws of Salvi and respect the independent spirits of their contractees. (This has not, unfortunately, been enough to quell the old myth about "selling your soul to the Salvians" that you hear around ports every now and again.)
    Evocation-magic requires not curiousity but surety--the certain knowledge and belief that one's action is right, and that it will happen.
  3. Where Perception pulls oneself across the spirit realms and Evocation creates something new, Redirection alters physical reality by manipulating the soul of an object and knocking it about in four-dimensional space. This is much, much harder than it sounds: one has to superimpose an image of what one wants the object to become, and then force that image down the dimensions. To put it another way, if one has a square peg and a round hole, one inserts the shape of a round peg in the soul of the square peg, then forces the square peg to conform to its round version, if only for long enough to fit into the hole. One can also latch onto the soul of something (a lot harder than it sounds) and move it in the three local spatial dimensions as well.
    Normally one has the choice of imposing a basic shape on something, imposing the shape of something nearby, or even just digging into the background of one's subject's soul and pulling out a convenient shape. This is how one might turn one's enemies into frogs, for example, but also how one might heal someone (pulling a healthier version of themselves out of their memory while their normal body recuperates elsewhere). This is also how the Salvians create their specialty: four-dimensional pyramids, cubes, and spheres, which can be used as floating platforms, phoenix origami, or even to create bigger-on-the-inside houses (a must with the population boom in recent centuries).
    Redirection-magic requires not curiousity or surety, but strong emotion--unbridled anger or excitement or terror, the emotional blaze creating the necessary pull to alter reality as one wishes.
A few notes:
  • Spells manifest in the form of a physical charm, or else they merge with a part of the landscape and feed off the energy collected by living souls. Often mages like incorporating them into gems or weapons, or sometimes staves. In Hidnapandam and Kudoli in eastern Salvi, there is a long-standing tradition of weaving spells into cloaks. In the Far East, in Gykken, there were warlocks who imbued the offspring of shapeshifters and animals with powers, which could only be activated in contact with them. (Familiar-killing was one of the very first ways the revolution began.) Sometimes it manifests in the form of specific tattoos, as among the Performers (also of the Far East) or in the jungles of the south of Salvi.
  • Spells require a heck of a lot of energy. Many can only be activated while the Midnight Sun is shining; others, especially the larger ones, require constant replenishing from their surroundings, draining the ecosystems around them of any stray thaumic particles. They may rely on some natural feature--winds, rushing water, auroras, tectonic activity--but more often than not it's down to feeding on living things.
  • Most people, even Salvians, never master more than one or two spells in their lifetime; very, very few manage three. More often than not the new spells they learn are alterations of the initial spell, perhaps by combining it with another sub-sect. (One combination of Evocation and Redirection, for example, has been the creation of the jamagaditih branch of spells, charms that provide a bubble within which optimum growing conditions for a certain crop--rice, for example, always popular in Salvi--are replicated again and again. Better than fertilizer, even if it is a little monotonous.) Another way around this is to store one's ability in an amulet (ōgmalun) and rent it to someone; in exchange, any time they use the spell, a little magic is sent one's way, which helps power other spells one might have rented. Seriously, an entire economy was built on this exchange, although the actual method is under government patent.
  • It's not impossible to use spells even if you can't make them--the amulets are rather good for that sort of thing. Still, they do tend to target a certain type of Gift--spell-making being the obvious one, but spirit-sight, spirit blanket, and metamorphosis are also particularly receptive to spell-usage, especially in combination.
  • Usually spells are activated through some combined verbal and physical ritual; the verbal element can be anything from a word to a chant to a full recitation of a chapter of a holy book, while the physical element can be the destruction of a magical object, or a hand gesture while connected to a magical source, or a full dance. Sometimes even this isn't required, and mental effort alone is necessary; a very powerful but slightly insane sorcerer from Markeneird, for example, managed to turn an entire field of windmills into stone giants through a particularly vivid hallucination.
  • It is indeed possible to use spells created by other species--but incredibly difficult, except for djinn. (Controlling a djinni is a very easy way around this problem.) The Salvians, for example, borrowed a fair few spells from the phoenixes (largely , while the Icemannic shamans use a number of leviathan-derived spells for their travels in the spirit world.
  • It has been suggested by Salvian thaumologists that the Gifts of the sapient species besides djinn are all derived from different types of spells: spirit-sight, dream-walking, and telepathy from Perception-spells, spirit-blanket and spirit control from Evocation, and spirit-cocoon, healing, and metamorphosis from Redirection.

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: On the Nature of the Gods

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:24 am
by Pedant
A little break from Tolkien to add some things from my own worlds…

ON THE NATURE OF THE GODS
On The Incubation of Souls
The stars are magical. Anyone who's looked up at the night sky can see that quite clearly. Their presence has inspired contemplation about the nature of the universe, calculation of passing time, even the shape and nature of the cosmos. The truth about modern stars is even more powerful; they are the great forges of space, blending base atoms together in their depths and scattering them to the winds. There is so much to admire about them, to be amazed at.
But in the Crayfish Nebula, thin and dark but still bound together, stars serve an additional purpose. Stars of different masses act as forges for magic as well, and project it forth for use by souls across the vast region of space. On Ajjamah, the Midnight Sun acts as a catalyst for magic not simply because it is there, but because it amplifies the effect from the home-star and gives people something to use. On Ja, 15.04 light years from Ajjamah, the effect is much more muted; few creatures even have souls, and the intelligent ones that do (humans, selkies, vampires, etc.) have barely enough to keep those souls functioning over several reincarnations.
The smallest stars, like Aeolian Pentatonic Descending, merely create a local rift in four-dimensional space, shunting matter over at a right angle to reality. These are extremely valuable for voyagers across the nebula, as they create stabilizing markers on the cosmic ley-lines used for hyperspace travel. Creatures like the Miser Crabs prefer these habitats, traversing the multiple planes of reality as easily as walking down the street--but at the cost of not maintaining any memories after death, because there is no place for that personality to go.
Medium-sized stars produce magic in a different way, opening up a connecting bridge to what we may (with some ceremony) call the Spirit World. Worlds like Ajjamah, Ja, and Qrith are home to creatures who live either on the skin of reality or within its depths--mortals and spirits, some call them--but both have access to magic and to both realms, although mortals keep their memories on one side and spirits keep their true forms on the other.
The largest stars, like λ Ratis some twenty light-years away from Ajjamah, are the incubators of souls. All souls within a certain area around B- or O-class stars tend to come from that self-same star; they travel across the cosmos at great speed, until some find planets to settle on. A large number will remain on those worlds, while others will pass on; some will leave, later on, to join their long-lost brethren. The soul is incorruptible and immortal--so long as its home sun still burns. Once it has gone supernova, assuming they survive the initial shock, they will be bound to the world they have latched on to. Should they be unable to leave before the sun goes out, they will die with it--but they will likely have managed to live for billions of years, instead of the mere tens of millions their star-voyaging cousins manage.
(How do we know this? Most of the information comes from a race known as the Predecessors, a race of sauropod-like creatures who some seventy million years ago stripped themselves of their mortal bodies to travel the cosmos anew. The Ark-Builders, a younger race who look a bit like Old Gods at a beauty pageant, have apparently observed similar things from their great dyson sphere observation posts. They passed it on to the Miser Crabs, who passed it on to humans on Ja.)

On the Three Realms
On Ajjamah, there are three separate layers of reality used by souls.
The physical plane, sometimes called the Mortal Realm or even the Dull (though there is nothing dull about it), is common ground: a three-dimensional playground for spirits and the initial home of mortals.
Heading "out", we find a number of layers of reality collectively termed the Dream, although this is known by many other names: the Otherworld, the Afterlife, the True Reality, etc. The closest layers are dedicated to how people imagine the world to be; the entire world is laid out in minute detail, as it is while incarnate souls perceive it. This is the linchpin of the divine communion, the layer where spirits may be seen and each moving thing has its own personal soul. This is also where human spirits come for their afterlives, carefully guarded communities shared by thousands and sometimes millions of souls who have yet to reincarnate. Other lands contain the imagined earthly realms of the gods, demons, and other associated spirits; sometimes these look little different from the places called sacred by their believers, other times entire imagined cities are made manifest in a layer of reality less than a millimetre thick. Beyond these isles, the rest of the Dream is a sea--a thick, churning sea of light and colour, particles of local magic soaring in from the suns and helping feed the souls who do not yet have enough energy to manifest back in the world. It is in the Dream where magic happens; change something's shape here, and its physical manifestation will change accordingly.
On the other side, heading "in", we find a completely different world, one untouched by gods and mostly unavailable to mortals. The Deep is a record of everything that happened in the planet's history for the past fourteen million years; past this point, memories start to fade away. The Deep provides an anchor for spirits and mortals alike to remember their pasts and make judgement calls accordingly. Some have learned to call up memories from the Deep on command, the "true nature" of the world discernible through its perusal.

On the Nature of Magic
Humans remember in the Deep, and believe in the Dream; but they live in the world. So do phoenixes, leviathans, and behemoths. Jinn (or spirits) do not; and yet their fondest wish is to obtain memories for themselves, to wrap themselves in a blanket of thought and take on a body, that they might become more secure. Humans seek immortality in the afterlife; the denizens of the afterlife seek immortality on the physical plane.
There are four powers in the world that magic provides; each race has some version of this power as their mainstay, but can learn the others. The phoenixes' main Gifts lie in shapeshifting, changing from one form to another to better preserve their souls, or forcing it on others to subdue them. This power they draw from the energy present in the atmosphere, the very movement of the planet through the void providing the means of transformation. The leviathans prefer portomancy, letting them lift travel in different ways to different places; the most common method is through flight. Their power comes from the hydrosphere, as do all spells used by other races. The behemoths of the plains use conjuring, transporting or creating new material objects by drawing out their forms from the void and letting energy rush to fill the structure. This magic relies on tectonic activity, using the vibrations within the earth itself to pull new things into being. Humans can learn to use all these powers, if they focus; but their main Gift, and the one most of the powers in this story come from, is the extension of their souls, or psychoparusia. They manipulate how the soul itself works and manifests in the Mortal Realm by its presence in the closer layers of the Dream, with effects from tactile telekinesis to truth-seeing to cloning; and to do so, they need the protection of the biosphere.
Jinn have no Gifts of their own; they are souls with a "clean slate" as it were, not defined by or intertwined with a specific sphere of energy. However, they do have the option of catching spells from others, mimicking the way their soul contorts to power their magic. Collect enough of the stuff and it becomes part of one's blanket of memory, the outer shell of the god that gives them personality, power, and experiences.
Magic itself, when not part of one's inherent Gift, can be performed through spoken words, prayer, an inscription, complex signing, or even large-scale physical movements. This is aided somewhat by the presence of

On the Seven Forms of Spirit
  1. The lowest level of spirit that interacts in any way with mortals is the sprite. Sprites are small and usually utterly harmless; they manifest in areas of high magic, feeding on the dynamic interaction between spirit and matter. (Static interaction happens when souls are reshaped by bodies, instead of reshaping them.) Usually they appear as little puffs of white light, floating in the air around sacred places.
  2. Next is the poltergeist or dybbuk, which technically has no body of its own. Dybbuks feed on energy given off by mortal souls, and may try to parasitize the occupying spirit by attacking it. Side-effects of feeding may be a general sluggishness or lethargy, a change of personality, or the presence of voices inside one's head belonging to the dybbuk's previous victims. Some dybbuks remain in a place after the death of their host, and while trying to attach to a new host they may cause bouts of undesired telekinesis as the soul tries to fight off the intruder. Some dybbuks are adversely affected by some issue their host spirit cares or cared deeply about, and may possess someone else after their original host's death to see it completed. Some may even stick around their families or associations, providing good fortune and defending against those who would attack the people they leave behind. Salvian thaumologists have put forward the hypothesis that dybbuks may have been mortal souls seeking to reincarnate too quickly and overtaking the natural soul in a body to do so, but nothing conclusive has yet been proven.
  3. Yakshas (also called nymphs or lares) are what is best known as collective spirits, the manifestation of the psychic energy of a place, landscape feature, or even species. River spirits are quite popular, of course, as are spirits of the forest, the plains, volcanoes and mountains, the sea, and the winds. Animals of various sizes and complexities have their protectors as well--even those with individual complex souls, like humans or the Three Others or the dragons before them. Sometimes spirits may manifest in the form of individual plants or animals, but made much larger by the influx of energy from outside--often these can speak, and sometimes take forms akin to mortals. When proper respect is not given to these, yakshas transform from relatively peaceful spirits to vengeful demons, burning with fire or reduced to bones or pestilence. Only the death of their mortal form, or time given for their body to heal, may save them.
  4. Genies are rather like dybbuks in that they have at some point parasitized human beings. The difference is that while dybbuks take over the mind and body, genies are captured spirits, and are shaped by the magic of their masters. Some genies merely amplify the powers of the user, extending their will and making their effects more permanent. Other genies seem to be misplaced yakshas, using powers derived from the circle of the world they hail from for whoever controls them. Controlling a genie is said to make one more and more dependent on its magic to survive, as the rest of the nearby universe feels its suffering and seeks to end it by making life incredibly difficult for its master. By contrast, freeing a genie in legends and folklore is said to lead to "peace and prosperity for the rest of one's days," as an old Ammayan story puts it.
  5. Demons are another level up, living on and enhancing mental concepts in the minds of mortals. Archetypes, larger-than-life events, virtues and sins, emotions, language, codes of conduct...all of these connect mortals together, and become their own Forms in the air--which demons often take over, wrapping the manifestations around themselves like cloaks of many colours. Some choose to react only after death, the virtues and sins in life literally following your unprotected soul around and filling your mind with the results of your actions. Others strengthen the presence of their manifestations on earth; Agmandi, for instance, keeps Salvian children under their watch if they wear his amulet, a protection only broken if attacked by sufficiently powerful spirits (or if they renounce their protection, or if someone tears the amulet off them--although the last one may be counteracted by the amulet enacting a powerful magic to protect its recent wearer, at least until they can get their amulet back). None are good or evil per se; they simply react as people feel they ought to react, some in favour of their concept and others against it. Many have subcategorized these into "gods" (who may do good) and "demons" (who will most likely do bad), but they are really two sides of the same coin.
  6. Penates are much like yakshas, but instead of belonging to natural features they are the spirits of mortal creations. Most are relatively small, the essence of a lived-in home or a well-used tool. Some are bigger; the Imperial Palace in Gienghia has its own spirit, with lesser spirits for individual rooms but all of them beholden to the spirit who controls the whole. Normally these just make sure the objects last a little longer, but some go a step further and become conduits for magic. By calling on the power of the smithing-tools one may forge things of greater beauty than one could ever imagine; by blessing an arrow one may see it always find its mark. The more powerful ones can be made to have magical effects. Salvian crafters have been feeding power into inanimate objects for thousands of years, with staggering results.
  7. The most powerful spirits are tricksters, beings who but for want of a body might as well be mortal. They live in lowest levels of the Dream, slipping in and out of the physical plane, conversing with mortals, and making changes as they see fit. They do not feed on living souls, or wrap ideas around themselves; instead, it seems trickster spirits feed on the creative processes of mortals. Ideas, when they first appear in the Dream, are small patches of magic given an abstract form; trickster spirits nurture, pouring a little of their own energy into them (if they seem good), giving mortals a little extra boost to make that idea a reality. Having done so, the trickster can live for a good while on the interpretations of that idea throughout history, even as lesser spirits take over the object forms. Tricksters are an essential element of civilization, and have been found everywhere from the burning Backout of Ambalira to the state-cities of Qoldishtar.
Any or all of these may be worshipped as gods by mortals; this only makes them stronger, as more and more memories come their way from people who attribute various events in their lives to the work of outside forces. They don't often interfere with mortal affairs--mortals have their own Gifts to play with, after all--but nevertheless spirits are an integral part of life on the physical plane.

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: On the Nature of the Gods

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:04 am
by Pabappa
I like it. Does the presence of dybbuks affect the burial process?
Humans remember in the Deep, and believe in the Dream; but they live in the world.
Is "remember in" a mistake, or do you mean this sentence literally?

Also when you use the word demon in the writeup about yakshas, do you mean that in the precise narrow sense you use it in part 5, or in the broader sense of a malevolent spirit?

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: On the Nature of the Gods

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:25 am
by Pedant
Pabappa wrote: Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:04 am I like it. Does the presence of dybbuks affect the burial process?
Humans remember in the Deep, and believe in the Dream; but they live in the world.
Is "remember in" a mistake, or do you mean this sentence literally?

Also when you use the word demon in the writeup about yakshas, do you mean that in the precise narrow sense you use it in part 5, or in the broader sense of a malevolent spirit?
Many thanks! In order:
  1. Not generally. Dybbuks tend to depart with the soul itself, and generally with a heaping helping of memories from the time it spent inhabiting their body. Of course, it might also stick around to inhabit someone else’s body--one of the gravediggers, perhaps, or a pallbearer. That’s generally why it’s a good idea to have a heavily-protected priest consecrating the body before it’s moved.
  2. It’s quite literal, I fear; the memories of humans have almost a backup-disc copy in the Dream, along with the memories of everything else capable of processing those memories over a period of fourteen million years.
  3. Aaand yeah, you caught me on a bit of a specific point there. It’s in the broad sense of “malevolent spirit”; maybe I ought to replace “god” and “demon” in the later sense with “deva” and “asura” to make a proper distinction...

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: On the Nature of the Gods

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:29 pm
by Ares Land
Not much to comment except to say that it's an exceptionally nice piece of conworlding!

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: On the Nature of the Gods

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:19 am
by Pedant
Ares Land wrote: Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:29 pm Not much to comment except to say that it's an exceptionally nice piece of conworlding!
Ah, many thanks!
Here's a comment for you, though: is there anything you'd like to see more of? Any ideas as to what to cover next?

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: On the Nature of the Gods

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:33 am
by Ares Land
Hmm... How about a short story, if you feel like it? I think it'd give a more concrete perspective on the supernatural concepts.

Other than that, I always like historical sketches of conculture.

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: A Smile in Your Heart

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:16 am
by Pedant
Ares Land wrote: Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:33 am Hmm... How about a short story, if you feel like it? I think it'd give a more concrete perspective on the supernatural concepts.

Other than that, I always like historical sketches of conculture.
Huh! Well, I can work on that sketch, but in the meantime, I do indeed have some stories floating around, like this one:

A SMILE IN YOUR HEART
Noschyre, Province of Rethira, Irthiron
March 17th, 1287 After the Union (AU)/3750 of the Salvian Long Count (LC)


The Irthironians were among the most emotionally stilted people in the world. A proper man or woman had no time for flights of fancy, no fairytale ideals, no elves at the bottom of the garden. There were the stories in the Attestation, of course, but they were just that–stories. Parables. Explanations of good behaviour, with reference only to things that might happen.
There was no time for Nonsense.
There was no patience for Fantasy.
And imaginary friends Did Not Exist.
Which is why it so disturbed Mister Cenric Fernburn, 24 Market Lane, to see a small boy, ten and timeless, creep into the bedroom window of his children from out of thin air in the early evening.
Because such things did not happen.
Children were not taken away by flying boys. Children were taken away in the middle of the night by monsters of a much more conventional kind. Rapists. Slavers from the barbarian lands to the far east. Drug addicts. Travelling sorcerers. This was what he'd been told, all these years, and this was what he believed.
And thus it was with all the speed a father could muster that he tore open his front door, pushed past Cook and Aeda, and bounded up the steps three at a time, screaming at the top of his lungs, "Leave them alone you bastard I'll kill you I'll kill you keep your hands off my children–-"
But he was too late. The room was empty. That bay window was open wide, and that big room, with the blue walls and the three four-post beds and the old rocking horse in the corner, was silent and lifeless.
All except for the child.
It smiled at Cenric, like a doll. An expression of mirth painted on his cherubic face like a factory toy, golden curls tousled about his head, eyes as pale and cold as stars, dressed in leaves. Oak leaves, like the ones in the park, the only trees his children really spent any time with.
"I came to see you for myself," it said. Cora's voice.
No. Not Cora's voice. When Cora told the story of Girrah-Goorrah, the flying boy, to her brothers, she gave him a voice full of victory and daring. A voice like a hero.
This was that voice, coming from this mockery of a boy. An illusion.
"Where are my children?"
"You're not even afraid of me," said Girrah-Goorrah, and there was a hint of anger in his voice now. Anger like the Children's Mother had had, at the world, at everyone. Hateful anger. "You're supposed to be afraid of me."
"I'm not afraid," whispered Cenric. "Not of you. You're not real. You can't be. You're a monster, and you stole my children, and you have the gall to wear the face of my daughter's imaginary friend."
"Oh, so you know about me?" said the boy. He rose into the air, sitting cross-legged at head height. "You actually listened to your children, then? All those times, sitting on the steps outside the nursery?"
"How would a kidnapper know about that?" snarled Cenric.
There. The shape flickered, just for a minute. Again.
"I'm no kidnapper!" shouted the timeless child. "I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!"
"And now you're mocking my Warraen. That's what he does when he throws a tantrum. You're no child. You're copying my children. You stole them from me, and God knows I can't think of what you want to do with them without vomiting, but you're not Girrah-Goorrah. You're a sick, disgusting person who stole my children from me."
There it was again! A shabby old man, in a raggedy coat, with a leering face. Whatever it was scrunched up its face tight, like it was in pain, and the boy was back.
"Stop! Please!"
"And now that's my Persi when he has night terrors," said Cenric, moving forward. "You took my children, and you took their voices. I don't know where you've hidden them, but I will find them."
And the ageless child laughed, and this time it wasn't the laugh of his children, or his wife-of-late. It was like the barking of a dog. The family dog. Bryne. And she'd been dead for years.
How long had this creature been watching his family?
"I wanted to see you," said the boy, "because I was afraid you'd forgotten me. So many people do, these days. Because you're all so clever, now. You don't watch out for us, you make it so we don't exist. You tell us you don't believe, and every time you do one of us disappears." He floated closer. Cenric backed away, but came up against the wall. And the creature reached out, touched him with a hand not much larger than a baby's.
And when he reached out to grab the hand, it stayed that size.
And suddenly it was Warraen's hand, the first time he'd ever reached out to Cora and wrapped his little fingers around hers–
He tried to pull himself together.
"Where are they?" he asked, real fear in the pit of his stomach. "How do I make you give them back?"
"You can't," said the boy. The stars in his eyes pierced Cenric like ice.
"They're not yours," said Cenric, in a low voice. "I don't care who you are, who you are to them, they're not yours. You can't have them for yourself."
"She let me in. She gave me a body, a voice. Her brothers' bodies, her voice. These are such precious gifts, Papa."
"Don't call me that--" he cried in despair, but the voice went on, "But you don't want me to be here, to have those gifts. Nobody on this island wants that, anymore. Except the children. You haven't taken them yet. Their minds are still open. And they will believe anything."
And now there were other forms, mixed in with the baby and the kidnapper. A hundred creatures, of all shapes and sizes, some of them innocent and some of them demonic, but all with that painted expression on their face. Like they didn't know how to move their muscles properly.
"So," whispered the boy, "I'll make you a deal, Cenric. You like deals, don't you, you grown-ups? You know where your children are. You know, if you've listened to your children's stories. You'll have to stop being a grown-up, and let yourself believe in us again. And if you can find them, you can have them back. It's a little game. If not, they'll stay with me, and eat pretend food and feel full, and fight pirates and listen to the elephants talk, and will never grow up. It's your choice."
"What do I have to–"
"You already know."
He patted Cenric's cheek, and Cenric flinched, because that was what Cora used to do when she was all of eleven months old and everyone was happy.
And Girrah-Goorrah was gone.
And the room was empty, but for him. And but for a shadow of a child on the window-frame, outlined in the light of the street-lamps, watching curiously.
Waiting for him to jump.

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: On the Nature of the Gods

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 3:14 pm
by Pedant
Ares Land wrote: Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:33 am Hmm... How about a short story, if you feel like it? I think it'd give a more concrete perspective on the supernatural concepts.

Other than that, I always like historical sketches of conculture.
Actually, quick query: what do you mean by a historical sketch?

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: A Smile in Your Heart

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 4:57 am
by Ares Land
I like the story. Nice and creepy. So where did the children end up?
Pedant wrote: Fri Jul 24, 2020 3:14 pm Actually, quick query: what do you mean by a historical sketch?
Ah, sorry, that was unclear. What I meant is that I'd like to read a history of one your conculture (or several of them!)

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: A Smile in Your Heart

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2020 7:32 am
by Pedant
Ares Land wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2020 4:57 am I like the story. Nice and creepy. So where did the children end up?
An excellent question! To which the answer is: all djinn have the ability to spin memories into locations. Likely the children ended up right where they were, but several layers deep inside the Dream, surrounded by a mixture of childhood memories and approximations of things they imagined. Girrah-Goorrah’s island, for example, might look just like the Isle of Maranee where they Spent their summer holidays, despite being much warmer because of course the tropics are warmer, says so here in this book, and there are palm trees and milk-nuts and everything...
Ah, sorry, that was unclear. What I meant is that I'd like to read a history of one your conculture (or several of them!)
Ah! Well, then, I ought to see what I can do...

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: The Union of Irthiron, Part I

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:53 pm
by Pedant
THE UNION OF IRTHIRON
Part I: Introduction and Geography

There are many surprising things in the world of Ajjamah, but oddly enough one of the most surprising has very little to do with magic. The nature of this surprise? That a relatively small island, as far removed from the rest of the world as could possibly be, was able to weld itself together into a globe-spanning empire. The island of Irthiron, and its associated territories and colonies, has risen to become the most technologically advanced civilization out there--and note, despite the presence of supernatural powers in this world, the use of the word "technology". Like Zàhn Kwēn and Qoldishtar in the Southern Hemisphere, Irthiron has built its empire in spite of magic instead of with it--and indeed seems to be compelling those living in her colonies to behave the same way.
Irthiron is off the northeastern coast of the island continent of Ambalira, and is shaped roughly like a triangle, 666 km wide and 500km long; the total land area is larger than the South Island of New Zealand. It is surrounded by several dozen smaller islands in decreasing area, the largest being Baliron to the south, about the size of the island of Lombok on Earth. Indeed, it is from this sea of islands that the name derives; the Old Carnusian word irθiron means "archipelago", as distinguished from the Ambaliran mainland or xaira. The highest point on the island is Mount Antyne at 1,496m ASL; this is surrounded by the Downs, covered with moors and with a cool temperature perfect for summer holidays. There are several lakes; the largest is Lake Ongulempa on the eastern side of the island, at 134km long, bordered by Mount Antyne to the west and the Uncalurni Mountains to the east. The west of the island is choc-a-bloc full of limestone, and indeed boasts some of the most impressive karst caves and structures on the continent.
The climate is marine, and quite pleasant. It is custom to dress relatively lightly, maybe only two layers even in the winter. Wool is the most ubiquitous fabric, although many in the upper classes have rather taken to imported textiles like cotton, spider-silk, llama wool, and even sisal for hats. Agriculture largely consists of roots and fruits, in particular the chocolate lily (the roots are long and sturdy, and are excellent fried and served as chips), goldapples, silkpears, and appleberries, but there are also leafy vegetables (most popularly spinach and pepperleaf) and other products (such as cidergum). Common domesticated animals are ostriches, geese, and blueroos (a marsupialoid adapted for a rainy mountain climate by means of thick wool and relatively little movement).
(NOTE: There are technically no marsupials on Ajjamah, evolution of viviparity in lactiles having taken place in the oceans and the descendants having returned to land. It should not be surprising, therefore, that wooly jumpers instead lay large soft eggs, like those of the platypus or turtle, in clutches which their mobs--and recently farmers--protect. On the plus side, so do the native rabbits, which makes spring celebrations rather fun…)
The Centre is largely taken up by Mount Antyne and the Downs; the climate is cool and misty, with plenty of rain and even a dash of snow in the month-long winters. The South is hot and dry, rather like southern France, and indeed some of the best cider-mills in the country are found there. More to the point, however, it's also the agricultural and economic hub of the island, with a great many trading ports here. The East has the most lakes; the West has the most small islands, including a few known for their railways.

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: The Union of Irthiron (First Peoples and the Tharons)

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2020 1:50 pm
by Pedant
THE UNION OF IRTHIRON
Part II: The First Peoples and The Arrival

(NOTE: much of this text is taken from the works of one Afrid Tharsan, a historian from 11th Century Hamhyre. Although by contemporary standards his words lack some political correctness--and this has been reflected in some of the elements within the text--his is the summary of ancient history that is taught most often across Irthiron to this day.)

First Peoples: Concerning The Waaruk, or Brunassoes
Looking over a map of Irthiron, two formats become abundantly clear in naming conventions. Many places have very straightforward, easily-understandable names: Hamhyre just means "river-town", Cordayle "silver-valley", Hoswayne "ostrich-fields", Brontheorra "bridge-fort", and so on. Comparable names are found in Wyniskooer, Markeneird, even Borjella on the mainland. But then there are other names, similar-sounding but with no apparent meaning: Backaparry, Ongunissa, Parryorny, Tentunica. These are not the names of the Irthironians. These names belong to the First Peoples.
There does not appear to have been a unified name for these folk. Each tribe had its own name, related in some way to the world around it. The Odal, the Warntal, the Onortal, the Ajookertal, the Mentekertal…each of these and ten others had their own corner of the island, and they seem to have spoken related languages if not dialects of the same language. If they called themselves anything, it was probably *Waaruk--the Tribes, to distinguish themselves from the *ntyakngiipirril--the Men from the Ocean. A few still remain, stubbornly refusing to mix with these invaders; they go by the name Brunassoes [brʉ'næsɔ:ʊz] now, singular Brunas ['brʉnə], meaning "Aborigine" in Irthironian. They mostly seem to be tall, as tall as Irthironians proper, with brown skin like old burnt umber and eyes and hair of gold. Living full lives as Irthironian citizens, a number nevertheless refuse to worship the Five, instead keeping to their older traditions. They are lucky to have survived; in elder days, they would have been forced to recant their beliefs before an inquisition, and if they refused then they would be sent to burn in the Straw Men.
For the Brunassoes, everything in the world is connected by music and words. Every living thing has its secret name, every river, every mountain. Know the right word, sing the right song, and you can make the world come to you. No wonder, then, that they also call themselves ukŋatyal, the Listeners, who must move with the beat set by the Source of Songs, the god Aarntuluunga worshipped across the northeast of Ambalira. A sky god, to be sure, but where else does sound travel most clearly? Also present are the lesser spirits: the gods of the suns and moon and and planets, the nurtaatyal or nymphs of the sea and rivers, and the urnimul or Dancing Men underneath the ground. The rainbow serpents--ancient spirits known across the continent (and indeed beyond)--were of special interest in the west, where they were said to hallow the limestone caves and fill them with heavenly light. Every animal is but one animal, with his own name and star, and if you know how to call him you will catch him--and then you must let him go by burying his skull in the ground, so he may return to the Deep Land where Aarntuluunga can remake him. Death is a tricky concept in Ambalira generally, and mostly they believe spirits will hang around for a while, giving aid when you call them--until they choose to be reborn, and suggest their old name to their new parents.
The Brunassoes had no metalworking before the arrival of the Irthironians, bar some simple copper-smithing and gold-work. (Iron is more common on Irthiron in any case.) No great astronomers were they, as the natives of the Inland Sea were. They hunted and gathered, and farmed rabbits and herded blue-roos. They had a fondness for the tubers of the chocolate lily, but picked it up where they wished and did not sow or reap. Their songs were long and rich in detail, passed from bard to bard; they had no writing of their own. Shamans would choose a star to guide them, and the animal associated with that star as their totem; it was customary for babies of the tribes they stayed with to be named in some way after that animal. (If, for example, your tribe's shaman used the spirit of the leviathan--aarnu--you might name your baby Liipmanaarnu, Leviathan-Song, or Uurtnaanaarnu, White Leviathan, the first element often passed down in families for generations.) They fought amongst themselves with weapons of copper or hardwood; they built houses of wood and turf, and towers and circles of stone for security and ceremony. Their families were matriarchal and matrilineal, buildings passing down the female line and herds down the male. And everywhere they went they painted, with ochre on cave walls replicating etchings in woad and chalk on the body during times of ritual importance.
The Brunassoes seem to have lived on the island for something approaching 110,000 years, not far off the time it took to actually reach Ambalira from the savanna of Potamia in the first place. (Note that years are a bit shorter on Ajjamah; the approximate Earth time is only about 70,000 years.) Civilization, as the Irthironians would put it, has only been part of the island for the last five millennia.

The Arrival: Concerning the Tharons and Their Glorious Arrival
Around five thousand years ago, as empires around the world made their expansion, so too did a people from the Inland Sea expand to control the entire northeast of the continent. Avoiding the western desert as much as was possible, instead the Gingay-Murra expanded into the rich lands to the north and east. They established a colony on Baliron, the smaller island between Irthiron and the Continent, but never got much further than what is now the city of Hamhyre. Even their religion had relatively little sway, as they took Aarntuluunga as a representation of their own sky-god Irli-Kawna (modern Irthironian Elecone). The Gingay-Murra brought ostriches and geese with them, and took back rabbits and blue-roos; they planted apple-berry trees and imported chocolate lilies. Best of all, they brought iron-working with them, and in isolated settlements the practice took on almost a mythical bent, with techniques from the mainland being taught and improved upon in new kilns across the south. Pottery, too, became more common, as opposed to the wood or reed articles from before. Baliron--then called Lanja-Dandjaw, the Opal Island--still hosts many from that race today, speaking their own dialect and preserving strange but not unuseful customs.
Eventually, the Gingay-Murra Empire fell into stagnation, as empires do, and a third race enters the picture--the Tharons, from the great peninsula on the west side of the continent. Living as nomads on land and sea, theirs was a culture devoted to warfare and glory. On great triremes they came, galleys rowed by trained slaves loaned by their masters to the war-effort--and row they did, for partaking in conquest could guarantee them their freedom, and much profit besides. They landed on Baliron, which they then called Bran or "bridge-land", first under Sæwinu I (called Seawine the Frightful in modern history books) in the early 10th Century BU (Before the Union--this is ), and started a colony there at the expense of the Gingay-Murra, whom they promised to defend "against the savage northern raiders". These were men and women of the Brynnoc Tribe; it would be the Sar Tribe, led by Carnosan I, who would make the first real incursions into Irthiron. Originally the island was called Mirdere /'mɪ:ædɪɜ:/ or "green place", and the united lands of Mirdere and Baliron together would be Irthiron, the Archipelago; later, as the Sars expanded inland, this name would be given to Mirdere foremost, with Baliron simply becoming "the south island"--hence its modern name.
(NOTE: the more astute readers will note certain unusual features of the Tharonic language family, namely the presence of sibilants and indeed full fricatives. Deviation though this appears, it is not uncommon in the western languages of Ambalira to have both fricatives and a greater number of vowels, possibly due to the demands of the milder climate. The presence of labialized velars is somewhat more confusing; no other language family on the continent possesses them. Scholars have postulated two theories: first, that the Tharons had their origins not in the west but in the far east, as cousins of the Trancers and Botantists; and second, that [s], [z], [k], and [g] are all that remains of a palatal sequence similar to other families, and [kw] and [gw] the older velar consonants. The latter has some support in the similarities of place-names in the west--the Kamic word tyarnu against Irthironian cairn "bow", for example--but this could simply be a result of a sprachbund with local reinterpretations of sounds. We may never know.)
The first kingdoms, from the 9th to the 5th Century BU, were modelled after the fashion of the Tharonic warrior-culture: knights (hosony, singular hosonu, literally "ostrich-man") were beholden to their liege lord (and he to the king), but themselves were free to establish new territories inland. In this manner many ended up becoming allied with local clans, marrying into the "towers" and producing daughters who would own the land, but enforcing monogamy over the previously polyandrous society and sending their sons to be squires to other knights. Slowly but surely, the lands of Irthiron were overtaken, and the native language almost forgotten bar a few strange names and a turn of phrase or two.
What of Aarntuluunga? The Irthironians did not mind the presence of local nature deities, but they themselves followed a stronger pantheon. Known as the Bether (from Old Irthironian bether, bethri) or the Five, these differed from tribe to tribe, clan to clan, and even person to person at times, but each individual pantheon had to contain five beings. The first represented the cosmos as a whole (usually a sky or earth-deity, but with some stake in honour or glory); the second, the warrior spirit (but this was often supplanted by a love goddess, as courting was considered a battle of sorts--and yes, both parties could bring weapons into it); the third, wisdom and understanding (sometimes replaced by a crafting deity); the fourth, the cycles of life (sometimes of the sea, sometimes the land, sometimes the rivers); and the fifth, the spirit of death, mostly to be propitiated rather than feared. Within the bounds of the Betherian Pantheon many variations were allowed; some of the oldest gods do date back to the Discovery, but many go back further still, repurposing older nature gods and animal spirits as gods of the human condition. (Thus did Aarntuluunga become Anton, one of the more popular deities in the still-largely-native northwest.)
It is this emphasis on the mind--what humans could do instead of what nature would allow them--that proved to be the greatest blessing and most terrifying curse of the Tharons. At the mercy of the minds of some of the most powerful thinkers among them, no longer were secret names needed; terrifying things, things from nightmares made real, came to life across the island. The rainbow serpents that guarded the heavens and collected the dead now became monstrous dragons, wingless and yet airborne, breathing poisonous fumes as they erupted from the deep. As stories reached the communities in Backample and Ursabby of great multicoloured monsters, so the belief in these monsters grew--as did their accuracy, thanks to the rainbow serpents morphing into terrible creatures. The Brunassoes call this period The Losing Time, when their old gods seemed to desert them for the enemy, or else morphed into terrible demons. As paranoia grew, so too did the landscape become more and more frightening.
It would take the whole of the Era of the First Kingdoms to establish the Sar-Brynnocian language and culture across the island of Mirdere, and centuries more before the ancient beings could be calmed or tamed--or slain, as was the case in many a valley and hillside (though they seemed to keep coming back for some reason). Iron-working became ubiquitous across the island (all the better to slay monsters with), as agricultural tools imported from the Inland Sea. The secret runes used by druids and witches, themselves derived from the Gingay-Murra abjad, became standardized as a way of communicating across settlements, compiling information on the dangers within and the treasures to be found. Irthiron had started as an easy way to gain glory, but dragons and monsters and hill-people...this was more than glory, now. This was personal.

Re: Ajjamah Scratchpad: The Union of Irthiron (First Peoples and the Tharons)

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:51 pm
by bradrn
Pedant wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 1:50 pm Looking over a map of Irthiron
Totally unrelated question: is there any particular reason why the coastline often makes 90° angles?

(I don’t have anything to say about the rest of the post, other than that I really like it!)