Tag Archive | reiassan

3WW: Pause in the Journey

Mar20

Three Word Wednesday is a once-weekly 3-word writing prompt.

The three words are breeze, mellow, tickle. This is set in the Rin & Girey world, before View-Point

Pause in the Journey

Girey was either still asleep, or faking it well, but the day was too nice, the sun streaming in through the tiny glass windows; Rin couldn’t stay abed any longer. She glanced again at her captive, who was, for the first time since Ossulund, sleeping comfortably and solidly, with a smile on his face. Let him rest. They would be into Callanthe civilization soon, and there would be no rest for either of them.

She slipped on her outer qitari but left her shoes and hose off. The weather was unseasonably mellow, and she wanted to enjoy it. She opened and closed the door to the way-station as quietly as she could, and stepped out into the sunlight; for the first time she since and Girey had started on their trip, she was alone.

The grass was growing, as it often did in the wet season, so quickly you could almost see it growing, and the breeze was warm, bringing a current from the sea that smelled, however faintly, of salt-water and fish. But it hadn’t been raining all that much in the last week, and the ground didn’t squish beneath her toes, so she walked out onto the small yard, kept well-cropped by visitors’ goats, as theirs were doing now, and let the wind tickle at the back of her neck and the grass tease between her toes.

It was nice to be going home, she had to admit, and yet, at the same time, terrifying. What would she do with him, her staid, grumpy Bitrani prisoner, when they were in Lannamer? What would she do with herself? The war was over, and the mopping-up stage would have far less need for healers, so she’d been given her release. She was no longer part of the Emperor’s Army, except in the most formal sense. She wasn’t a student anymore, and, though she could have gone back to the University, she didn’t think Girey would be happy there. That left palace life, and politics, or putting on the guise of a wandering healer, and taking to the roads again.

She thought through that one for a few minutes, her face tilted upwards to the sun, her hands out flat to the breeze. She could do it, and Girey would likely be all right with a small wagon and a box-bed (a long wagon, of course, for his stretched-out height, but they could still do with two goats). No one would think to look for the missing heir of Bithrain in an itinerant healer’s wagon. Nor would they look for an heir of Callenia there. It would be just the two of them, and her clients. Just the two of them…

…a flea chose that moment to bite her, and she swore softly. The palace, at least, would have more regular baths. Baths, and beds that would fit her captive. The day no longer looking quite as beautiful, she headed back into the way-station.

http://www.addergoole.com/lyn/
http://addergoole.com

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Reiassan map, with mountain ranges and cities

Mar14

Reiassan map, with mountain ranges & 10 major cities
Reiassan map, with mountain ranges & 10 major cities

also the updated most-recent-border between Bithrain & Callenia and two small border settlements.

Population, etc. notes:

Approx 540,000 sq. miles of land
Approx 328,969 sq. miles of arable farmland
Approx 164,484 sq. miles of grazing/pasture land

Population of the continent about 7.2 million, of which 10% is urban and of that 50% is in biggest 10 cities.
Divvied by city approx:
69,335 Lannamer
41,601 Ouyknan
37,441 Arran 1
35,361
32,934
31,201
28,427
27,041
24,267
22,881

Draft map of Reiassan, showing a few major landmarks

Mar11

Draft map of Reiassan
Draft map of Reiassan

showing a few major landmarks

The borders are general “around this latitude” border markers; the border itself would be much more wiggly, following the terrain. The higher border is a historical border, when Ossulund was Eretia, but the border has moved a lot through the centuries

The line in grey down the right-center of the continent is the highest elevation of the major mountain range; the absolute highest peaks are up in the glacial area, petering down to hills by Bitrani territory.

The large river in the middle is the Velka Ree (“big river”), the dot near that is Ossulund.

Although I’m contemplating making the planet slightly smaller than Earth, right now, a degree latitude is the same as it is on Earth – approx. 69 miles (111 km). The continent is approx. 2760 miles long (4441.79 km), 518 miles (833.64 km) wide at the widest point.

Because of the very uneven terrain, travel on goatback is approx. 15 miles a day, down to 10 on the rough parts. Much of the travel is via rivers, and, since the rivers generally flow from North to South, this is part of the reason Callenia is better able to conquer Bithrain than the other way around.

Wordlbuilding – stealing from other languages fail.

Feb28

When figuring out what to call the shirt-garment worn by the Callanthe people in my Reiassan setting, I decided to name it a qitari, since it was a combination of a Chinese qipao and a Turkish entari. I was pronouncing this kee-tar-ree

Something we were watching on TV yesterday had a qi word, pronounced chee- something. And I said, “am I pronouncing my made-up word wrong?”

A little Googling later, I determined that yes, yes I was: http://qipao.info/

So it’s a chee-tari.

Cool. 🙂

P.S. There will be writing here again soon, I promise.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/16746.html. You can comment here or there.

Worldbuilding random eep!

Feb25

Weeks!

Weeks are based on our rotation. They’re nice.

Stories with tendays bother me almost as much as stories with candlemarks and smeeps.

But calling a (for instance) 9-day span a week seems ripe for confusion.

Meep?

(not smeep, that’s different)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/16120.html. You can comment here or there.

Notes on Fashion & Status

Jan20

First: The Callanthe like bright colours, and they like to mix them. They’re hampered only by not having advanced chemical dyeing techniques. This drawing, from the Peacock King, is what they’d wear if they could manage those colours.

I was looking at Russian historical garb today, and I’ve noticed a trend: most historical clothing seems to be based on “put on layer after layer of the same basic pattern until you’re warm.” This makes sense: having a summer & winter wardrobe separate of one another is expensive.

Clothing and status:

So the side the shirts close on indicates skilled worker vs. unskilled labor.

Fabric would also be an indication of status: silk is expensive in any world.

Add on to that pants. I’m thinking that pants are worn by those for whom long skirts would get in the way – those who ride, and those who labor manually. So an emperor and a farmer might wear very similar outfits, but the emperor’s silk tunic closes over the right shoulder, and the farmer’s hemp tunic over the left.

I’m still up in the air on embroidery/beading/etc. And hats! Hats are great for warmth. But. I don’t see the modesty issue coming up in quite the same way. I <3 beanies, but if I go with them, we hearken back more and more to China.

ETA: Terminology! Turkish, modern English, any one of the medieval European? Is it a kirtle or a cote or a qipao or a tunica or a liene or a…?

ETA: Qitari.

ETA: Neat site on qipao http://qipao.info/

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