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The Great Lands: Historical Atlas (100k BP)

The Great Lands: Historical Atlas (100k BP)

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While I do world-building for my fantasy novel-in-progress (The Curse of Steel), one frustrating feature of the process is that I have a hard time keeping all of my ideas for the back-history straight.

Now that I’ve managed to finish a world-overview map that I’m happy with, the idea came to me to build a series of “historical atlas” maps, some taking in the whole continent-scale view, others narrower in scope. Inspiration comes from sources like Colin McEvedy’s Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, which is full of nice, clean schematic maps describing the Western world through late antiquity. Here I’ve decided to try my own hand in the same style, using some color instead of David Woodroffe’s extensive use of cross-hatching.

Here’s a link to the DeviantArt page for this map.

Historical Context

The earliest history of the Great Lands begins about 100,000 years before the time of Krava the Swift.

At this time, the world had been enjoying a long period of warm climates, with almost no glacial ice and forests reaching up into the polar regions. The planet was inhabited by a humanoid species, the “Elder Folk” (Homo antecessor). These people were small and gracile, not very bright by modern standards, but capable of simple language, tool use, and some exploitation of naturally occurring fire. They had evolved in the southern continent of the Great Lands over a million years before, pursuing a flexible hunter-gatherer lifestyle that permitted them to spread across much of the planet.

Now a new evolutionary challenge was about to arise, one that the Elder Folk were ill-equipped to meet: the resurgence of a deep glacial age, longer and more bitter than any that had come before. As the climate shifted and ice began to move south, the Elder Folk were driven before it. Many of the scattered bands perished, unable to adapt to the new conditions.

It was at this juncture that something intervened, rescuing thousands of the Elder Folk from the western regions of the Great Lands. The rescued people were moved across the sea, and then into the oceans of heaven, to live among some benevolent spirits or gods. There they grew and changed over many generations, someday to return to the world in a new guise.

The survivors who remained behind adapted or died out. At least three new human species appeared over the tens of thousands of years of the Ice Age, all descended from the Elder Folk.

In the northern continent, the people who would one day be called the “Smith-folk” (Homo faber) appeared. These people were taller than their ancestors, and much more robust, stocky, tough, and very strong. Even early in their history they had a gift for making, for adapting the natural materials they found into useful tools. They also had an unusual relationship with spirits of the natural world. They learned to capture spirits, bargain with them, and bind them into made things to produce powerful artifacts of enchantment. All of these new skills gave the Smith-folk the chance to survive the worst that the Ice Age world could do to them. They preferred the hills and mountain slopes, where they could hunt both beasts and spirits, and where they eventually learned to find the ores of useful metal.

In the southern continent, the “Common Folk” of later eras (Homo sapiens, the analogues of our own humanity) arose in the sahel zone south of the great desert. The Common Folk grew even taller than their northern cousins, but not as robust or strong. They failed to develop the same spiritual gifts, tending to fear spirits rather than think of them as partners or servants. On the other hand, their capability for abstract thought and spoken language was more sophisticated, destined to help them develop the richest cultures on the planet. Slowly, they spread along the coasts of the southern continent, keeping away from the heart of the desert.

Far away in the east, another population of Elder Folk survivors evolved in a different direction. Amid a rich archipelago, the “Island-folk” (Homo insularum) grew small and nimble, but also bright and quick of mind, the better to hunt the abundant game (and avoid larger predators). The Islanders remained far distant from the rest of the world, to appear in a far distant era.

All four of these survivor species grew in isolation, as the abandoned Elder Folk populations dwindled and became extinct. Not for many thousands of years would they all come into contact, in the centuries leading up to Krava’s time . . .

Revised Map of the Great Lands

Revised Map of the Great Lands

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Lately I’ve been working on back-history and geography for The Curse of Steel, and for the EIDOLON-based world-pack I’m writing for parallel publication. This has caused me to experience greater and greater frustration with the world map I built last fall . . . so yesterday I bit the bullet and got to work revising that.

Fortunately, the Wonderdraft tool makes this kind of work very easy. As of this evening, here’s the result – a full Version 2.0 of the Great Lands map:

Here’s a link to the DeviantArt page for the work, in case you’d like to look at or download a more high-resulution image.

This is a big step forward! Next I’m going to be using this map as the basis for a kind of “historical atlas,” a series of schematic images that will help me nail down the historical timeline. Some of those may end up going in the world-pack too, but we’ll see how well they turn out. If this does nothing more than help me visualize how Krava’s world evolved, mission accomplished.

EIDOLON: Examples of the Extended Character (I)

EIDOLON: Examples of the Extended Character (I)

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My employer has sent me home for what may be the next couple of months, since I’m in a “high-risk” category for COVID-19 (over 50 and with a chronic health condition that might complicate if I come down with the disease). So here’s a great opportunity to work on EIDOLON and some of the world-building for The Curse of Steel. I may be posting a lot more frequently for a while . . .

For today, here are some notes I’ve put together over the past few days. Here I’m starting to puzzle out how the EIDOLON “extended character” will work in practice. I’m working with the home society for The Curse of Steel here – the Tremara or “Mighty Folk,” a tribal Iron Age culture somewhat reminiscent of pre-Roman Celts. These notes aren’t polished rules material, but if you refer to last week’s post you may get some insight into what I’m working on here.

In Tremara society, the smallest monetary unit is the copper penny (cp). A copper penny is roughly the value of a pound of barley.

As a practical matter, most Tremara tribes don’t coin copper pennies. Most transactions at that level are handled through barter or exchange of favors. The most common coin in circulation is the silver penny (sp), which is worth 12 cp. Very wealthy Tremara sometimes use gold coins for big transactions; these are either obtained in foreign trade or minted by the richest tribes. The gold piece (gp) is worth 20 sp or 240 cp.

Tremara agriculture is based largely upon barley. A bushel of barley weighs about 48 pounds, and so is worth about 4 sp.

Assume an average person requires 600 pounds of barley per year. This constitutes a subsistence diet, without much variety or luxury, but enough to support a healthy life. This comes to 600 cp per year or 50 cp per month. Assume another 10 cp per month for other expenses (clothing, tools, maintenance of housing, and so on). Hence the bare minimum for subsistence living will be 60 cp (5 sp) per month, or 720 cp (60 sp) per year.

Proposed rule for Social Standing in EIDOLON:

In any EIDOLON setting, the benchmark figure for Social Standing is a cost-of-living equal to the bare minimum for subsistence living in that setting. Social Standing for any individual equals log-2 of (his personal cost-of-living expenses, divided by the benchmark figure), rounded to the nearest integer.

Social Standing can be modified by conditions of legal or social privilege, although these modifiers will not normally amount to more than plus or minus 1.

Farming in the Iron Age

Tremara Agriculture

Tremara characters can own several Assets related to agriculture:

  • Crop Land (measured in acres) – cleared flat land of good quality that can be used to raise barley. Only half of the Crop Land is planted each year, the other half being left fallow.
  • Pasture (measured in acres) – cleared land that doesn’t have to be flat or of the best quality, which is set aside for grazing. Can also include land left forested for pigs to forage.
  • Horses
  • Cattle
  • Small Animals – some combination of sheep, goats, and pigs.

These Assets are operated by three classes of Workers:

  • Farmers – a character serving as a Farmer must have the Professional Skill Farmer at +2 or better.
  • Herdsmen – a character serving as a Herdsman must have the Professional Skill Herdsman at +2 or better. Each Herdsman is assumed to work with a pair of dogs trained for animal handling.
  • Farm Laborers – a character serving as a Farm Laborer needs no specific Professional Skill, but must have Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and Intelligence at +0 or better. A Farm Laborer provides unskilled labor, which is often seasonal in nature (grain harvest, shearing, milking, herding pigs, and so on). Farm Laborers may be slaves.

Agricultural Assets must be supported as follows, or else they can produce no profits:

  • One Farmer for every 24 acres of Crop Land (round up)
  • One Farm Laborer for every 12 acres of Crop Land (round up)
  • One Cattle for every 6 acres of Crop Land (round up)
  • One Herdsman for every 80 Horses or Cattle, or for every 120 Small Animals (combine fractions and then round up)

Farm animals must be supported by Pasture: 0.5 acres of Pasture for every Small Animal, and 4 acres of Pasture for every Horse or Cattle. Any animals not supported by Pasture are lost.

Each year, Agricultural Assets will produce profits:

  • Per acre of Crop Land: 210 cp (350 pounds of barley, of which 140 pounds must be set aside for next year’s planting)
  • Per Horse: 150 cp (loan or sale of animals, possibly stud fees)
  • Per Cattle: 100 cp (milk, leather, meat)
  • Per Small Animal: 20 cp (milk, wool, leather, meat)

Each year, the farm workers must be paid:

  • Per Farmer: 2,700 cp
  • Per Herdsman: 1,800 cp
  • Per Farm Laborer: 900 cp

Example: A Prosperous Farmer

An independent Tremara land-holder maintains his own small farming settlement:

  • 48 acres of Crop Land
  • 60 acres of Pasture
  • 12 Cattle
  • 24 Small Animals

The land-holder himself is a Farmer. His wife and eldest son serve as Farm Laborers, without needing to be paid (they are supported by his profits). He has also hired a second Farmer and a Herdsman as farm-hands, and he owns two slaves who serve as additional Farm Laborers. All his labor requirements are met. He has enough Cattle to support his Crop Land.

The land-holder’s farm produces 11,760 cp per year (10,080 cp in profit from the barley harvest, 1,200 cp from the Cattle, and 480 cp from the Small Animals). He must pay his labor 6,300 cp per year (2,700 cp for the Farmer, 1,800 cp for the Herdsman, and 1,800 cp for the two Farm Laborers). He makes a clear profit of 5,460 cp per year. Divided among himself and his four dependents (including his elderly mother and a daughter too young to work), this comes to 1,092 cp per year per person. His Social Standing rounds up to +1.

Example: A Chariot-Lord

A Tremara chariot-lord owns three small farming villages, scattered across several miles of countryside. These amount to the following Assets:

  • 1,000 acres of Crop Land
  • 1,400 acres of Pasture
  • 40 Horses
  • 260 Cattle
  • 400 Small Animals

None of the chariot-lord’s personal Company (his household) are working as Farmers, Herdsmen, or Farm Laborers. He needs 42 Farmers, 84 Farm Laborers, and 8 Herdsmen to maintain his lands. He has more than enough Cattle to support his Crop Land.

The chariot-lord’s lands produce 250,000 cp per year (210,000 cp in the barley harvest, 6,000 cp from his Horses, 26,000 cp from his Cattle, and 8,000 cp from his Small Animals). He must pay 203,400 cp per year for labor (113,400 cp for his Farmers, 75,600 cp for his Farm Laborers, and 14,400 cp for his Herdsmen). His annual profits are 46,600 cp. Divided among himself and three dependents (wife and two children), this comes to 11,650 cp per year per person. This chariot-lord’s Social Standing rounds off to +4.

Some final comments:

So far, I’ve been working mostly on the left-hand side of the diagram in last week’s post: the income and profits generated by a character’s Assets and Workers. I haven’t done too much yet on the right-hand side: the hirelings and support staff that can make a wealthy character’s life better. I’ll need to develop both sides before I can lay out what a wealthy Tremara chariot-lord’s household really looks like! More on that as my enforced vacation continues.

A Bit of Conlang Translation

A Bit of Conlang Translation

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One of the things I’ve been working on is a minor reworking of the Tremara language that appears in The Curse of Steel. Mostly I’m just choosing a few word-roots differently for aesthetic reasons, and tweaking the word-formation rules so that I’m not applying the Pūnct’uatìon Sh’akër quite so liberally.

I’m also working through some translations from English, since that’s a good way to develop more vocabulary and try out the syntax and grammar. Here’s an example, which was much more complex than I expected it to be, although I’m pleased with the result. As a small challenge for you, see if you can identify the original text.

Kadir ganari tíveta, anara tar dranet. Náraië tar steret, velo tar athemeta plemet, iu kesë tíveta aseneti. Bravam lókosar ganari genana dun, tan sendi ganari verdun, iu kesi sendenti argeni verdónemo. Geni pereta vergan va, tan geni revsova areg. Kun náraië tar asenet, tan kun poten, tan kun naren, athemë plemeti va. Asenet.

It’s working, I think. A little more of this, and then I need to generate a few dozen new personal names. The character names in the draft are a little repetitive.

Alone in a Crowded Milky Way

Alone in a Crowded Milky Way

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Enrico Fermi

I don’t usually post just to link to articles, but this one was particularly intriguing: Alone in a Crowded Milky Way.

Executive summary: the author and his colleagues did some modeling of the expansion of interstellar civilizations through a segment of the galaxy. They made some fairly conservative assumptions – STL travel only, how many planets would be worth colonizing, how long a given planetary civilization would be likely to survive. The result was that space-faring cultures tended to form “archipelagos” in interstellar space, leaving vast regions unvisited for many millions of years at a time. The limiting factor was imposed by stellar cartography – the arrangement of interesting planets among a population of stars that move over time.

This strikes me as a similar approach to Geoffrey Landis’ percolation theory, and yields similar results. In either case, we get a galaxy that could be full of interstellar-capable civilizations, and yet one in which many habitable worlds (like ours) might appear unvisited at any given time. It’s a sophisticated solution to the Fermi Paradox, and one which avoids nightmare scenarios.

One insight the authors of this article mention, which I hadn’t considered, is that even if Earth had been visited – or even colonized – at some point in the distant past, we might have no way of knowing that. My own models for putative galactic civilization might stand to be relaxed a little. That might go on the list for some deeper research, if and when I get back to working on space-opera projects.

Two Demigods

Two Demigods

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I’m taking a bit of a break from working on The Curse of Steel directly. One of the things I’ve done is to tinker a bit with representing some of my characters in GURPS terms. A bit of a challenge, since these are clearly superhuman characters (they’re the descendants of gods, in a setting where that basically makes you a superhero). As a sample, here are what are shaping up to be my two lead characters, at least so far:

Kráva the Swift (400 points)

Age 20; Human; 6′ even; 160 lbs.; Strong, athletic warrior-woman, usually wearing fine-quality clothes decorated with raven feathers.

ST 22 [120]; DX 14 [80]; IQ 12 [40]; HT 14 [40].

Damage 2d/4d; BL 97 lbs.; HP 18 [-8]; Will 14 [10]; Per 12 [0]; FP 14 [0].

Basic Speed 7 [0]; Basic Move 7 [0]; Block 9 (DX); Dodge 11; Parry 11 (DX).

Social Background

TL: 2 [0]. CF: Tremára (Native) [0]. Languages: Tremára (Native) [0].

Advantages

Ally (Raven sent by Sky Father) (25% of starting points) (12 or less) [2]; Ally (Raven sent by Sky Father) (25% of starting points) (12 or less) [2]; Ally (Tarankláva) (150% of starting points) (15 or less) [30]; Appearance (Attractive) [4]; Blessed (Heroic Feats of ST) [10]; Charisma 2 [10]; Combat Reflexes [15]; Enhanced Move (Ground) (1/2) [10]; Fearlessness 2 [4]; Patron (Sky Father) (6 or less; Highly Accessible; Minimal Intervention) [15]; Status (+2) [5]; Super Jump 1 [10]; Wealth (Wealthy) [20].

Disadvantages

Bad Temper (12 or less) [-10]; Code of Honor (Tremára) [-5]; Enemy (Servants of the Dark God) (medium-sized group, some formidable or super-human) (9 or less) [-30]; Vow (Hold and defend the Thunder Blade unless its rightful owner should appear) (Minor) [-5].

Quirks: Chauvinistic; Headstrong; Proud; Vow (Shield-woman’s oath) [-4].

Skills

Animal Handling (Equines)-11 (IQ-1) [1]; Area Knowledge (Ravatheni Lands)-12 (IQ+0) [1]; Bow-15 (DX+1) [4]; Broadsword-14 (DX+0) [2]; Climbing-13 (DX-1) [1]; Current Affairs/TL2 (Ravatheni Lands)-12 (IQ+0) [1]; Hiking-13 (HT-1) [1]; Intimidation-13 (Will-1) [1]; Knife-14 (DX+0) [1]; Leadership-14 (IQ+2) [2]; Navigation/TL2 (Land)-12 (IQ+0) [2]; Politics-11 (IQ-1) [1]; Public Speaking (Oratory)-14 (IQ+2) [1]; Riding (Equines)-15 (DX+1) [4]; Running-13 (HT-1) [1]; Savoir-Faire (Tremára)-12 (IQ+0) [1]; Shield (Shield)-15 (DX+1) [2]; Spear-13 (DX-1) [1]; Stealth-13 (DX-1) [1]; Survival (Plains)-12 (Per+0) [2]; Swimming-14 (HT+0) [1]; Teamster (Equines)-14 (IQ+2) [4]; Throwing-13 (DX-1) [1]; Tracking-12 (Per+0) [2]; Wrestling-13 (DX-1) [1].

Kráva is very much a physical hero – very strong and fast, with a bit of Extended Move (Ground) and Super Jump to make her very mobile. She’s by no means stupid, but her talents mostly involve punching (or cutting) her way through problems.

A couple of notes about her Allies: I’ve drawn up her raven familiars as characters, and they both come in well under 0-point characters, so they’re fairly cheap.

I’ve also drawn up Tarankláva, her sword, as a character. As a practical matter, it works as a fine-quality broadsword with a bonus to skill rolls, but it also has certain powers of its own, which it uses to feed her information. The “curse of steel” has to do with the fact that it doesn’t feed her all the information it could in theory gather for her. On the sword’s character sheet, that’s set down as Reprogrammable and Slave Mentality, with a Divine Curse that prevents the sword from telling its bearer everything it sees.

Lóka the Clever (400 points)

Age 25; Human; 5′ 7″; 150 lbs.; Well-built man in a white vaita‘s robe.

ST 11 [10]; DX 13 [60]; IQ 15 [100]; HT 12 [20].

Damage 1d-1/1d+1; BL 24 lbs.; HP 11 [0]; Will 15 [0]; Per 15 [0]; FP 12 [0].

Basic Speed 6.25 [0]; Basic Move 6 [0]; Block 7 (DX); Dodge 9; Parry 9 (DX).

Social Background

TL: 2 [0]. CF: Tremára (Native) [0]. Languages: Lake Country (Native) [6]; Sea Kingdom (Native) [6]; Tremára (Native) [0]; Vaita Script (None/Native) [3].

Advantages

Appearance (Attractive) [4]; Blessed [10]; Cultural Adaptability [10]; Detect (Divine presence and children of the gods) (Rare) [5]; Eidetic Memory [5]; Magery 2 [25]; Modular Abilities (Cosmic Power) (Per point of abilities (+6); Trait Limited: One specific trait (Languages Only)) [30]; Musical Ability 2 [10]; Patron (Kórsata) (6 or less; Highly Accessible; Minimal Intervention) [15]; Social Regard (Respected) 1 [5]; Vaita Rank 1 [5]; Voice [10].

Disadvantages

Secret (Child of a god) (Utter Rejection) [-10]; Sense of Duty (Friends and companions) (Small Group) [-5]; Social Stigma (Second-Class Citizen) [-5]; Vow (Never admit his divine ancestry or the name of his divine parent) (Minor) [-5]; Xenophilia (12 or less) [-10].

Quirks: Congenial; Despises slave-owners and slavers; Likes to show off his cleverness; Proud [-4].

Skills

Current Affairs/TL2 (Ravatheni Lands)-15 (IQ+0) [1]; Diplomacy-15 (IQ+0) [1]; Esoteric Medicine-14 (Per-1) [2]; Fast-Talk-16 (IQ+1) [1]; History (Tremára Lands)-15 (IQ+0) [4]; Knife-13 (DX+0) [1]; Law (Tremára)-15 (IQ+0) [4]; Literature-15 (IQ+0) [4]; Musical Influence-15 (IQ+0) [2]; Musical Instrument (Harp)-16 (IQ+1) [2]; Occultism-15 (IQ+0) [2]; Performance-18 (IQ+3) [4]; Poetry-16 (IQ+1) [4]; Politics-16 (IQ+1) [1]; Public Speaking-18 (IQ+3) [3]; Religious Ritual (Tremára)-14 (IQ-1) [2]; Riding (Equines)-12 (DX-1) [1]; Savoir-Faire (Tremára)-15 (IQ+0) [1]; Singing-18 (HT+6) [4]; Staff-12 (DX-1) [1]; Swimming-12 (HT+0) [1]; Teaching-14 (IQ-1) [1]; Theology (Tremára)-14 (IQ-1) [2]; Writing-14 (IQ-1) [1].

Spells

Analyze Magic-15 [1]; Apportation-15 [1]; Counterspell-15 [1]; Create Fire-15 [1]; Cure Disease-15 [1]; Detect Magic-15 [1]; Detect Poison-15 [1]; Dispel Magic-15 [1]; Divination (Oneiromancy)-15 [1]; Enchant-15 [2]; Extinguish Fire-15 [1]; Find Weakness-15 [1]; Great Voice-15 [1]; History-15 [1]; Identify Spell-15 [1]; Ignite Fire-15 [1]; Know Illusion-15 [1]; Lend Energy-15 [1]; Lend Vitality-15 [1]; Light-15 [1]; Loyal Sword-15 [1]; Major Healing-15 [2]; Minor Healing-16 [2]; Rejoin-15 [1]; Relieve Sickness-16 [2]; Repair-15 [1]; Restore-15 [1]; Seek Air-15 [1]; Seek Earth-15 [1]; Seek Fire-15 [1]; Seek Magic-15 [1]; Seek Water-15 [1]; Seeker-15 [1]; Sense Danger-15 [1]; Sense Emotion-15 [1]; Sense Foes-15 [1]; Sense Life-15 [1]; Shape Fire-15 [1]; Simple Illusion-15 [1]; Sound-15 [1]; Thunderclap-15 [1]; Trace-15 [1]; Truthsayer-15 [1]; Voices-15 [1]; Ward-15 [1]; Weaken-15 [1].

When I was developing this story, and considering how to represent magic, I messed around with a bunch of different models. In the end, I decided to go with bog-standard GURPS, at least for now. Some characters will have superhuman powers that are innate to them, represented by very high Attribute scores and Advantages. Other characters will be able to use “charms” or “spells” that are learned, powered by personal resources – hence, standard GURPS magic. So far, that seems to be matching the story I want to tell pretty well.

One note about Lóka: in the story, it’s a plot point that he seems to be able to understand, speak, read, and write any language he encounters. That’s kind of difficult to represent in GURPS, but the Modular Abilities trait used here seems to be the best way to proceed. As it stands, Lóka knows two or three languages by natural means. He can also “miraculously” use other languages that he’s never encountered before, although it takes him a few seconds to switch to the new script or tongue (he has to “get the trick of it”). At the moment he could get native-level fluency and literacy in one language at a time, or speak two strange languages like a native and act as a translator (without being able to read either of them), and so on. Useful!

More characters to come, I think, and I may make a post or two about world-building assumptions. This setting wouldn’t make a bad GURPS world-book, actually.

Gods of the Tremára

Gods of the Tremára

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While I continue to work on a map for the first sections of The Curse of Steel, I’ve come across another bit of world-building that seems very fruitful. To wit, now that I’ve developed something of a language for Kráva’s people to speak, I’m also in a position to develop mythology for them.

I had already come up with a few theonyms, but over this past weekend, I decided to work out a complete pantheon, with names, epithets, and backgrounds for a dozen or so deities. Not only am I very happy with the result, but it’s given me a number of new ideas for the story itself.

In particular, while I’ve been doing this, I’ve also been reading the new edition of the Scion roleplaying game, currently published by Onyx Path Publishing. Scion is basically an urban fantasy of the old World of Darkness stripe, but it’s chock-full of interesting ideas as to how to handle characters of divine descent in an otherwise mundane world. Clear inspirations from things like the Percy Jackson stories, American Gods, or The Wicked + The Divine. I’m honestly kind of tempted to shift my plot-development paradigm from FATE to Scion, which seems better suited for the kind of story I’m hoping to tell. Still thinking about that.

In the meantime, though, here’s a short set of first-draft notes on the gods of the Tremára people. You’ll probably detect that this is Standard Indo-European Pantheon, variant #3-b . . . you won’t have any trouble recognizing bits and pieces of inspiration here. Just as I’m applying Indo-European-like principles to my constructed languages, the same applies to my constructed mythologies.

The Tívai Atesdan

The primary deities of the Tremára are called the Tívai Atesdan, the “Twelve Gods.” The Tremára cosmology also includes a horde of minor gods, spirits of nature or of place, and divine heroes; all these lesser beings have their local cults, but the Twelve are revered by all.

Kádir Tívar, Sky-Father, Lord of the Bright Heavens

Patriarch of the Tívai Atesdan, Kádir Tívar is the divine chieftain and King. His is the oath that binds all under the law, and his is the iron rule of hospitality that keeps the peace among humans. In the time before humanity arose, he overthrew the creatures of Chaos who came before him. Now he maintains the cosmic order with stern ferocity, knowing that any respite might lead to his own overthrow.

For the most part, Kádir Tívar has been faithful to his marriage with his divine sister, the Queen of the Earth. On rare occasions, he has been known to descend to minor goddesses or mortal women in order to father great heroes. This is never a matter of lustful desire on his part, but rather a concession to the dictates of Fate – and his wife, as the arbiter of Fate, is often in full concurrence.

Athenná the All-Mother, Queen of the Earth

Athenná is the sister and wife of Kádir Tívar, the eternal foundation of all life and all existence. She is the mistress and arbiter of Fate, which stands above all law and justice. In ancient times, she was one of the children of primordial Chaos, and she retains more of that character than most of her siblings. She rarely appears to humans in their own form, but she will sometimes manifest as a force of nature, in majesty and dread.

Athenná has never been known to wander from her marriage to Kádir Tívar. That is not to say that she doesn’t create or choose heroes to carry out her will, only that their origins tend to be more indirect and mysterious.

Múrkavrio, the Great Bull

The embodiment of masculine power and procreative force, Múrkavrio gives men the power to strive and be victorious over all the challenges of life. He also manifests the power and prosperity that come from herds of domesticated beasts, especially the cattle whose form he often takes.

Múrkavrio’s insatiable desire has made him the undisputed champion among the gods for fathering children upon other divine creatures and upon mortal women. Almost every tribe and clan among the Tremára can claim descent from the Great Bull, renewed in every generation. His wife, Tálanna the Golden, seems reconciled to this, although there have been exceptions.

Tálanna the Golden, Lady of the Ripened Grain

Tálanna is the great nurturing power of the earth, the goddess who brings seed to grow and yield sustenance for all the earth’s children. Hers is the power that gives life to the grain, brings offspring to every animal kind, and sustains humanity. She is the patron and protector of women, especially in childbirth and motherhood.

As with her sister Athenná, Tálanna has never been known to consort with minor deities or with mortals so that she can bear heroes. Her champions are chosen or created, and are almost always women, sent forth to protect their mortal sisters against the violence or injustices of the world.

Tario, Lord of Thunder, Champion of the Gods

Tario is the son of Kádir Tívar and Athenná, the warrior and champion of the gods. He strides forth against darkness and chaos, leading the divine beings in battle at the command of his kingly father. His greatest weapon is the lightning, which he calls down from the storm-clouds of war. From warriors he demands unfailing courage, but also wisdom and clear thinking amid battle.

Despite his masculine nature, Tario is not known for ventures away from his wife, the Lady of Horses. Instead, he tends to incarnate among humans from time to time. On each occasion he lives an apparently mortal life, adds to his legend, and then returns to his place among the gods after death. Unfortunately, Tario’s incarnations rarely live an easy life; he seems to be fated to suffer greatly and fight the most difficult battles, no matter which turn of the Wheel he may be on.

Tekuná, Lady of Horses

Daughter of Múrkavrio and Tálanna, the Lady of Horses came to the Chariot People in the earliest times, as a great white mare who bore a thousand offspring and gave humans the power to thrive and journey across the land. Later she taught the people about chariots, and she and her husband Tario taught them to be warriors of strength and courage.

Like her father, Tekuná is well-known for her affairs with mortals, and many heroes can claim descent from her. Her children and their descendants are often seen to have a special way with horses, and they make superb charioteers and riders.

Kaima Gerio, Lord of the Underworld

Originally the first human being, the “divine twin” was elevated to godhood after his death, and assigned to rule over the Underworld. He is grim and silent, but not malicious, and he treats all with the same firm justice. He is also the source of all the wealth that comes from within the earth, the patron of miners, coiners, and jewel-smiths.

Kaima Gerio has never fathered heroes upon mortals, so far as is known. Most often, he will instead select the shade of some great warrior or sage of the past, and grant it reincarnation in the living world to serve as one of his champions. Heroes connected with the Lord of the Dead are often uncanny creatures, knowing things no mortal should know, seeking objectives that no mortal can understand.

Skádna, Mistress of Shadows

Daughter of Kádir Tívar and Athenná, Skádna was (very unwillingly) married to Kaima Gerio when he became the god of the Underworld. She is the goddess of shadows and liminal spaces, who stands between light and darkness, life and death. She is the Comforter who conveys human spirits to the Underworld, and the Advocate who argues for mercy or for vengeance depending on their deeds.

Skádna despises her husband, always remembering that he was not originally of divine birth. She has been known to sneak out and enjoy affairs with other gods or with mortals. Her heroic offspring are more likely to be wise-men or sorcerers than great warriors. Kaima Gerio punishes Skádna when her activities reflect poorly upon his honor, but he never persecutes her mortal lovers, always knowing that they will one day be required to face him for an accounting.

Kórsata, the Lofty One, Lord of the Sacred Flame

Kórsata is a son of Kídar Távar by Kórsia, a minor goddess of the mountains. He is the twin brother to Advenáta. He is the god of fire, whether it be the fire of the hearth, the fire of the forge, or the fire of holy inspiration. He is the healer and protector of humans, the patron deity of smiths, and the god most revered by bards and vaitai. Kórsata’s ways are unfathomable, as he often seems to pursue wisdom beyond mortal ken.

Kórsata is unmarried, having never found a goddess capable of understanding and embracing the depths of his spirit. He has been known to father heroes upon mortal kind, but some of his most well-known champions have been creations: carvings or statues or even poems brought to life by his blessing.

Advenáta the Beautiful, Lady of Love and Passion

Advenáta was also born to Kídar Tívar and Kórsia, twin sister to Kórsata. She is the goddess of beauty in all its forms, and the passion that such beauty inspires in humans. She is the patron of lovers, and is likely to take vengeance when love is denied.

Advenáta has so far refused to accept a husband, preferring her freedom. Indeed, not even her father Kádir Tívar has seen fit to insist on her attachment to any god or mortal, knowing that she must be left free to move as her spirit wills. As might be expected, Advenáta is renowned for the number and variety of her romantic affairs with gods, spirits, and mortals. She has borne several mortal heroes, a surprising number of whom have become great chieftains and kings.

Marapótio, Divine Master of the Seas

The brother of Kádir Tívar and Kaima Gerio, Marapótio was little known to the ancient Chariot People, but he has become more prominent as the Tremára interact with coast-dwelling folk. He is the solitary master of the great waters, the bringer of sea-storms and the king of sea-monsters. Few humans love him, but all fear and revere him, and call upon him when traveling upon the sea.

Marapótio has fathered few heroes among the Tremára, who have dwelt far from the sea for many centuries. The bards suspect that he has been more active among dwellers in the coastlands to the west and south, although those people likely know him by other names.

Kekóna, the Trickster, Mistress of Twists and Turns

Another daughter of Múrkavrio and Tálanna, Kekóna is a trickster-deity, goddess of lies and deception. She is a patron of merchants, thieves, and all those who must travel and cross boundaries. She is also a patron of warriors, but she favors those who use cunning stratagems to win, rather than those who rely upon brute force and courage. Strangely, she is usually portrayed as not resembling the Tremára, instead being light of hair and pale of skin like some people of the cold Northlands.

Despite her freedom of spirit, Kekóna is not known for casual dalliance with other gods or with mortals. Her love affairs are infrequent but very intense. Her gender is somewhat fluid; she has been known to engage with goddesses or women, and even to manifest herself as male if that is more likely to suit a prospective partner. Her rare children tend to be tricksters, wanderers and outcasts, much like their divine parent.

. . . and a Bonus Diagram

So, almost by accident, I tried putting together a little chart to help me visualize the relationships among all these gods. Turned out pretty well, given that it only took an hour or two to assemble. Enjoy:

First Sketch Map: Talmoi Móran

First Sketch Map: Talmoi Móran

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Now that I’ve got a solid foundation for my constructed languages for The Curse of Steel, I’ve rewritten about the first 10 kilowords of the novel, and I’m pretty happy with how that much has turned out. Now, though, Kráva and her friends are about to leave their starting point and set out cross-country, and I need to have a good picture of their surroundings. So now it’s time to do some map work.

Over the past couple of evenings I’ve laid out a very rough sketch map of parts of the continent Kráva’s people call Talmoi Móran, or “the Great Lands.” This is roughly equivalent to Europe (or western Middle-Earth), stretching from about 30 to 65 degrees North latitude, and across about sixty degrees of east-west longitude.

Kráva begins her adventure in the region labeled the Tremára Lands, an area roughly the size of France, bounded by the major Black River on the east, the Blue Mountains on the west, and a series of large inland seas (the “Great Lakes”) on the south. The Tremára (“Mighty Folk”) are one branch of the so-called “Chariot People,” this universe’s equivalent of the Indo-Europeans. The Chariot People have been spreading out from their eastern homeland for a few millennia at this point, and most countries around the edges of the Great Plains at the center of the map are inhabited by their offshoots.

I don’t think I’m going to go to great lengths to fill in this map in fine detail, not yet and possibly not ever. All that’s important for now is that I get a general idea of where everything is. I also got a reality check: I used an application called G.Projector to overlay this map on a map of Earth, just to be sure the layout and scale were at all plausible. So far, so good.

I might use this sketch map to work through some of the climate zones, just to be sure I know how that will fall out. But the most likely next step is to focus on the Tremára Lands area, and possibly the coastal regions adjacent to it, which is where about three-quarters of The Curse of Steel will be set. That map, I’ll probably take some time with.

Lexical Breakthroughs

Lexical Breakthroughs

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Who knew that building a constructed language would be so much work?

Okay, well, I knew that, because I’ve been struggling with it off and on for years. As often happens with my creative process, it’s a matter of building a workflow that will reliably produce good results. On many previous attempts, I’ve run aground on one step or another and had to stop and rethink – sometimes for months, while I worked on other projects.

So, the workflow seems to have turned out to be something like this:

  1. I started by selecting the phonemes and basic word structure for words in an ur-language, reminiscent of Proto-Indo-European. I didn’t make any attempt to closely imitate the full glorious mess that is reconstructed PIE, but I built a set of rules that would lead to PIE-like words.
  2. I wrote a Perl script to generate all the legal word roots in the ur-language, including adding some weights to help me get a plausibly uneven distribution in which phonemes were most likely to appear.
  3. I dumped all of the generated roots, with their weights, into an Excel spreadsheet. That’s my master lexicon.
  4. Now, when I need a new word, I start by browsing through the spreadsheet – possibly also looking at the etymology of similar words in real IE languages, so I can pick something plausible but not identical. I pick a root and assign it a meaning. Most of the roots have verbal meanings, then you get nouns, adjectives, and so on by adding inflectional suffixes.
  5. Once I’ve generated one or more new word roots, I hand-copy those into an ur-language lexicon I’m building in a Word document. Each root is the header of a short section, and I spend a few lines laying out the potential verbs, nouns, and other items that are derived from that word.
  6. Then I copy the word form I want to use into another Word document, which is the main lexicon for my complete language. There I apply the sound-change rules I’ve developed, give the resulting word or phrase a quick reality check (is it aesthetically pleasing to me, does it duplicate an existing word, and so on), and then save the result.

As of today, this workflow seems to be polished enough that I’ve been able to sit down and rattle off a few dozen new words, phrases, or names in no more than a couple of hours. (As opposed to struggling for days to be confident in a word or two.)

The results are pleasing, at least to me, and that’s the important part. I think I may be able to call this part of the process finished and get to other story-development tasks. I should now be able to generate new names and vocabulary in the fly. And, when my story gets to the point where my protagonist is meeting people from other cultures, it shouldn’t take me months on end to figure out what they will sound like.

Some examples might illustrate how this is working. Here’s a row from my Excel spreadsheet, recording a word-root that’s been particularly productive:

1@em384Noun“earth, the earth”Likely borrowed from another language1

Here we have the word root, written in an idiosyncratic code I’m using to make sure all the phonemes require only one character each. The numeric value is the root’s weight, on a scale from 1-1000. Then the part of speech, a gloss of the meaning, any notes, and finally a note as to which “batch” the root was created in (so I can track any changes later).

This then goes into my ur-language lexicon, where the entry currently looks like this:

*h1dhem-

  • Thematic verb root “to stand”
  • Thematic noun root “resolute position”
  • Thematic noun root (with neh2– prefix) neh2h1dhem- “battle line” (literally “where one stands”)
  • Athematic noun root (Ø-stem) “the earth”
  • Athematic noun root (edhas­-stem) “human,” literally “child of the earth”
  • Athematic noun root (neh2-stem) “earth goddess”
  • Athematic noun root (r-stem) “earth” (mass noun)

How do I pick roots? I basically follow Tolkien’s method, which was to riffle through his list and find something he considered both aesthetically pleasing and suggestive of the meaning. This root *h1dhem– certainly isn’t the same one that appears in PIE with that meaning; that would have been something like *dheghom instead. In this case, I think I was inspired by a bit of Hebrew – adamah “red earth, ground.”

Anyway, you’ll see one of the final outcomes of that root in the partial lexicon I’ve laid out below. Basically I copy out the word h1dhemneh2 (root plus an affix that indicates a theonym) and apply a series of (well-defined and organized) minor tweaks. The result: athenná “earth goddess.”

So, without further ado, a first lexicon for the gexan Tremárar, the language that will be spoken by Kráva and her friends in The Curse of Steel.

Personal Names

  • akretetha “child of the bear,” from h2kretedhas
  • alikóra “white horse,” from h2eldh “white” + keh3ras “horse”
  • alitha “white one,” from h2eldhas
  • araiadan “kingly man,” from h1rey “to rule, to be kingly” + dh2en man”
  • aregdani “protector of men,” from h1regh “to protect” + dh2eny “men”
  • arevga “red one,” from h1rewghas
  • arevírai “protector of warriors,” from h1regh “to protect” + weh1ray “warriors”
  • axesa “ruler, governor,” from h1ghesas
  • derga “cave lion,” from dherghas “plains lion”
  • dóva “dark one,” from deh3was
  • drúthan “sacred tree,” from dreh3 “having sacred power” + dheh2n “tree”
  • dúvelka “dark wolf,” from deh3w “dark” + welkas “wolf”
  • kólma “unmarred one,” from kh3elmas
  • kráskora “black horse,” from kreh2s “black” + keh3ras “horse”
  • kráva “raven,” from kreh2was
  • kúndan “loyal man,” from kweh3n “to be loyal” + dh2en “man”
  • lóka “one who burns,” from leh3kas
  • múraxesa “great ruler,” from meh3r “great” + h1ghesas “ruler, governor”
  • múrvira “great man,” from meh3r “great” + weh1ras “warrior, man”
  • náran “glorious one,” from neh2ran
  • náretha “child of glory, child of the sun, from neh2redhas
  • pelikórai “lover of horses,” from ph1el “fond of, holding a preference” + keh3ray “horses”
  • resa “the best one, the excellent one,” from resh1as
  • resavíra “excellent warrior,” from resh1 “best, excellent” + weh1ras “warrior, man”
  • resaxesa “excellent ruler,” from resh1 “best, excellent” + h1ghesas “ruler, governor”
  • róvira “royal or noble warrior,” from reh3weh1ras
  • tívetha “child of a god,” from teh1wedhas

Theonyms (Names for Deities)

  • athenná “earth goddess,” from h1dhemneh2
  • gerio “god of death,” from gheryos “death god”
  • kádir tívar “sky-father, god of the bright heavens,” from keh2deh1r teh1war “father of the sky”
  • kávrio “bull god,” from keh2wryos
  • skádna “goddess of shadows,” from skeh2dhneh2 “shadow goddess”
  • tálanna “goddess of grain,” from teh2lmneh2 “land goddess”
  • tario “thunder god,” from th2eryos
  • tekuná “horse goddess,” from tekwneh2

Ethonyms (Names for Peoples)

  • ravathen “by the (sacred) grove,” from rewh2dhen
  • ravatheni “those by the sacred grove,” a tribal name, plural form of ravathen
  • sanadmára “elven folk,” from senh2dh “old, ancient” + meh2ras “host, tribe, folk”
  • sanatha “ancient one, elf,” from senh2dhas “ancient one”
  • tremára “the mighty folk,” from tren “mighty” + meh2ras “host, tribe, folk”
  • trenvíra “mighty man, member of the tremára,” from tren “mighty” + weh1ras “warrior, man”

Place Names

  • alevo kanta “Kanta river,” from h2lewos (kanta is borrowed from a local hydronym)
  • alevo krá “black river,” from h2lewos kreh2s
  • kólami angar “iron hills,” from keh3lmy h2enghr “hills of iron”
  • kórsani konan “blue mountains,” from keh3rsany kh3enn
  • mara násetar “Western Sea,” from merh2 neh2setr “sea of the west”
  • múrtalmoi “the great lands,” from meh3r “great” + teh2lmoy “lands”
  • teimar nár “glorious hill-fort,” from teymar neh2r
  • teimar velkri “hill-fort of the wolves,” from teymar welkri
  • verkanta “over (the river) Kanta”

Miscellaneous

  • gexan tremárar “language of the mighty folk,” from geghh2en “language”
  • tás ravami “I love (or desire) you,” from teh2s rewh2mi

Not bad for a couple of months’ work. Not to mention that the back of my brain has been coming up with all manner of neat ideas for the setting and the story. The trick is to organize your world-building time so it actually contributes to the end result and keeps your creative mind engaged.

Building a Lexicon

Building a Lexicon

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Currently in my constructed-language work for The Curse of Steel, I’m selecting word roots from my script-generated list of all the legal possibilities.

I’m not being particularly systematic here. I started with the roots for several names I had already settled on during early development, and from an earlier word-list that I built before I started getting my computer to help out with all this. (Along the way, I discovered that I had broken some of my own rules about legal word-root formation. Time to make minor tweaks to the word-lists!)

With that finished, I’ve been grabbing words from a variety of sources: color terms, the numerals from one to ten, and so on. I’ve even pulled down my copy of the Silmarillion and started paging through the appendices for ideas – that’s kind of a ready-made list of vocabulary prompts for any naming language! Not that I’m slavishly imitating any one source, but if my final lexicon ends up sounding vaguely Indo-European and vaguely like Sindarin, I suppose I can be accused of stealing from the best.

So far I’ve got about 80 word-roots. The list follows, taken straight from my growing spreadsheet. A couple of notes first.

You’ll notice the word roots incorporate some numerals and special characters. Those are meant to represent some phonemes that would normally be expressed with more than one character. That way, when I pull them over to be processed by another Perl script, I won’t have to fuss too much with parsing those out. If you know anything about PIE phonology, you’ll probably recognize that I’m using a similar set of three “laryngeal” consonants, that will disappear from daughter languages but give rise to a variety of vowel colorations. Other special characters represent aspirated or labialized consonants (e.g., representing the differences among phonemes we might pronounce as g-, gh-, or gw-).

Meanwhile, every word root has a “weight” attached. This is something I built into the script to generate the word roots, to enforce some assumptions about which phonemes are most common.

Ur-Language RootWeightPart of SpeechMeaningNotes
re2n567AdverbParticle for future aspect of verbs
we2489AdverbParticle to indicate negation of verbs
2sper352Adverb“away”
te2n440Conjunction“and”
rey540Noun“chieftain, noble, king”
d2en440Noun“man,” also numeral “ten”
we@420Noun“water”
ke2m392Noun“hand,” also numeral “five”
kest392Noun“head”
@e2n378Noun“tree”
2eng378Noun“iron”Probably borrowed from another language group
%en360Noun“girl, woman”
1kwes313Noun“lake, pond, pool”
me2r@302Noun“fate, doom”
$2er252Noun“home, dwelling”
ke3lm196Noun“hill, knoll, rock”
ye1480Numeral“one”
kens1403Numeral“seven”
tre1s403Numeral“three”
2tes392Numeral“two”
semt1358Numeral“six”
we2rs352Numeral“four”
let3244Numeral“eight”
pen@3189Numeral“nine”
weytN/AVerb“to know, to see (visions)”Not a legal ur-language root, probably borrowed from another language group
1es640Verb“to be” (indicating a state of being)
ken630Verb“to think, to engage in spiritual activity”
ret630Verb“to guard, to protect”
wer630Verb“to die”
ne2r567Verb“to be glorious, to be brilliant”
tren567Verb“to be stiff, to be taut, to be mighty”
mew560Verb“to partition”
re@540Verb“to hit, to strike”
kres504Verb“to mix up, to confuse”
me2r504Verb“to crowd, to form a crowd”
kel489Verb“to be cold, to be chilly”
nek2441Verb“to strip away, to expose”
pret441Verb“to exchange”
terk441Verb“to break”
t2er440Verb“to crash, to smite”
dren2396Verb“to lengthen, to be long”
gre1n388Verb“to sanctify, to make a treaty”
1@em384Verb“to stand”
$er360Verb“to turn”
me3r360Verb“to be large, to be great”
kre2s352Verb“to be black”
ke3350Verb“to bend”
2lew342Verb“to flow (like water)”
kelt342Verb“to hammer, to work with metal”
welk342Verb“to tear”
teym336Verb“to encircle, to finish (a circle)”
de3n315Verb“to give, to receive a gift, to be guest-friends”
dre3315Verb“to have sacred power”
ke3r315Verb“to run”
kre2w308Verb“to make a harsh sound, to croak”
sen2@302Verb“to be old, to be ancient”
2el@293Verb“to be white”
2ewg293Verb“to hear”
te$280Verb“to be wild, to be free”
ske2t274Verb“to hate”
te2lm274Verb“to spread”
#e2n252Verb“to go, to walk”
ke3rs252Verb“to stand tall, to tower”
wer#252Verb“to threaten”
de3w244Verb“to be dark (in color)”
k3el244Verb“to be whole, to be unmarred”
kwe3244Verb“to be loyal”
le3k244Verb“to burn, to set aflame”
we3k244Verb“to speak, to call”
kle2w240Verb“to cut, to slice”
g2els235Verb“to be green”
ske2@235Verb“to darken”
de1#224Verb“to take”
@er#216Verb“to bite”
1rew#201Verb“to be red”
te2$196Verb“to hurt, to harm”
3re$180Verb“to straighten, to direct”
$2ey168Verb“to be blue”
$eyt168Verb“to be white”
de!140Verb“to divide”

I think I’ll probably generate a few dozen more roots, then copy them into a separate spreadsheet where I’ll build actual words. Most of the roots will make perfectly good words without modification, but I’ll also apply some of the word morphology rules I’ve worked out to derive more words. I imagine I’ll have as many as 200-250 words by the time I’m done, enough to form the basis for a decent naming language. Then to build Perl scripts to apply the sound-change rules.

Once that’s done – no doubt with a certain amount of tweaking to suit my aesthetic tastes – I’ll have a system by which I can quickly create and record new words as I write the story. In three different, but clearly related, languages!

Lots of work up front, to save a lot of work and frustration later. That’s what computers are for, right?