A Quick Conlang Post

Mar28

I’ve been doing a bit of conlang over on Patreon this month as I play with people’s names in Reiassan and their post-Edally titles.

But I realized that a core concept of Calenyen, the language, had no word: Use

Time to fix that!

Calenyen has three grammatical genders:

Useful/of Use – toka
Useless/with no use – tyok
Beyond use – etok 

-tok- is used only in this setting and for nothing else.  Discussing use as -tok- is a philosophical concept that is intensely important to the Calenyena from their  goat-herding days through to their Industrial Revolution and beyond.

 

 

Edally Academy Houses III

Mar27
Every one of the nine houses of Edally Academy has its own tower (which serves as a dormitory and social area), its own classroom building, its own uniform colors, and its own sigil.

House Gepmingippai (Geppai*) are the people you want to talk to if you want your school uniform to fit right; they are the school of Fashion and Textiles.

Weaving and knitting,  sewing and embroidery are all the purview of House Geppai. (GEP-pie).  Their perfectly-tailored, usually very carefully embroidered uniforms are in goldenrod, fushsia, and lime, the most brilliant colors that they can dye and nodding to no one god at all.

Their sigil is a needle athwart a loom, or just the needle, sometimes crossed with knitting needles. Continue reading →

Tootplanet: Explorers’ Logs Planet 7-11-1

Mar26

Planetary Day 321

Lei has something new to distract him from the joy water (and how nigh-impossible it is to get to the sea on foot from where we are, now); he has been domesticating the knee-highs – and teaching them tricks.

They are relatively friendly, if you keep them away from wires; we had discussed using the old trick of putting a cyanide-like compound on them, but both Lei and our three pregnant mothers complained.

So we’re using some spare plascrete armoring on wires & trying to keep them out of our beds.  

But at least Lei isn’t trying to drown himself in joy water anymore?

Some More New Words From a Name (written for Patreon)

Mar26
Mar 26, 2018 at 2:43pm
@RixScaedu asked for an etymology for her name in Calenyen, so, based on the meanings of the words that her pen name is based on and playing a bit with some etymology, I went looking.

Rik is from Beatrice, “bringer of joy”, and Scaedu is Old English for ‘shade’ , which has a sort of fun etymology to it.

I didn’t yet have a word for Joy yet!  Okay then, I can make it.

Rikkido : to give joy

Rikkie – Joy

Nor did I have a word for shade!  So I decided to steal a bit of English Etymology (shh)

Kadoo, shade: from archaic Kadkaddo, to give protection, to have one’s back (now only used in a social situation)

Kadtad, shield or protection, modern, used as aegis in English, that is, “she is under my protection.”

Want more?

Tootplanet 7-10-1: Another Viewpoint

Mar26

Or-en-al-en was not sure what had happened to reno life.

One moment, ren had been working in the forest, seeking out the best fronds for a rug-weaving, reno specialty.  The next moment, ren had been nearly killed by a death-thing from the sky!

That had been nearly an entire sun cycle past.

Now ren spent all of reno time talking to the Smartest Ones, the Ladies, or, might the depths protect ren, the Highest.

And yet there was still nothing ren could tell any of them, and reno rugs were unwoven and reno home was unsoftened.

Ren found that more and more, ren wished the brightness of death-fire, only, on the hyu-men who had sent this death-thing.

Except on the days of the full blue moon, when all stood in the center of town and spoke.  Then, the ones who were most lovely wished to speak to Or-en-al-en, because ren spoke to the Ladies.  

Then, ren thought the death-thing might not have been so awful.

 

 

Renovation Fics

Mar26

These are a few microfics, written to prompts for my Renovations Prompt Mini-Call (which is still open as long as I keep getting prompt).

Claim the Sun

The tree was ancient, the sort of monster that managed to live through a convergence of luck and good soil, best placement and the weakness of her neighbors.  She had sucked up all the sunlight for what seemed, to the younger trees, like miles. And she had, in turn, sucked up lightning blasts.

It had been the last one that killed her, cutting through old scar tissue and toppling her in a  crash louder than any thunder. Continue reading →

Tootplanet: Captain’s Log Sector 8, Subectors 6, 7, & 8

Mar24

Star Log Sec8 Sub6

Exit, pursued by a bear.

Or, in our case, a very large armada of very small ships.  Not tiny, the way that that one planet still stands in the mind, but one- or two-person ships, from the looks of things, all with impressive armament.  

It is not so much like being nibbled to death by ducks as it is stabbed by a thousand toddlers, which, admittedly, is not any better.

We made it out of the sector and halfway to the next sector before they stopped chasing us.  Now we’re looking for a place to make repairs.

Sending rec to HQ that they quarantine  Subsector 5 and all connected subs.

Star Log Sec8 Sub7

If a bear shits in the woods…

…it has definitely shit on this planet.

I thought the weapons-test planet in Sector 8-5 was bad enough. Now we’ve found what we’re betting is 8-6-1’s dump planet.

There are little robots skittering around, sorting trash and moving it into processing facilities.  There are dump ships that land here – we’ve seen one so far.

Oh, ffs. Trem has found indigenous sentient life living amongst the trash dumps.

Do the 8-6-1 sentients even KNOW?  Are they dumping on another civilization – or the ruins of their own?

I want out of here.

Star Log Sec8 Sub8

We moved quickly out of Sector 8-7 — maybe not quickly enough.  We were followed by one small ship right up to the edge of this planet’s space — where the ship immediately turned around and zoomed back towards Sector 6.

This planet is just as inhabited as 8-6-1, but far cleaner.

“Too clean,” Oina joked, but it might not be a joke.

Their broadcasts are very, very tidy.  I might not understand the language but I understand the feeling.  Their planet is very bright, pristine.

I got us out of there before they decided we needed cleaning.

 

Tootplanet: Captain’s Log Sector 8, Subectors 4 & 5

Mar24

Star Log Sec8 Sub4-1

After a long trip between subsectors with nothing but gas giants and tiny dead worlds, we came upon a plush world.

Not lush, plush.  This world is covered with a long coating of plants that look like fur.  They move in undulating waves from one section to the other such that it looks like a round, breathing animal with a watery belt.

This fluffy world is inhabited by equally fluffy creatures and beings, from round things like a mouse to tool-using being with two skinny upper limbs that bounce or roll from place to place.

Star Log Sec8 Sub4-2

That was the closest call we have had in a log time.

We did only cursory readings on this planet; it’s a lifeless rock with a very thin N2 atmosphere.

But as we were ready to leave, another ship – not one of ours – came swooping down on the planet, did a quick round of attacks, and left.

And again.

And again.

The fourth ship – possibly the fourth visit of the same ship – decided to attack US, too, while we were attempting to hail them.  We got out of there just in time.

Suggest this sector may be too dangerous for settlement.

Star Log Sec8 Sub5

I think we’ve found the source of the bombers from 8-4-2.

We are cloaked using the prototype Paetherel technology we picked up just before this run.  We are running on radio silence and, just to be careful, actual silence. The ship sounds like a graveyard, but better sound that way than be that way.

This planet is terrifying.  It is composed, as far as we can tell, of 3 major factions and at least a dozen smaller ones, and they are all attacking each other – both on-planet and on orbiting space stations and satellite habitats.

We are not sending a greeting.