Tag Archive | steamcallenta

The Goat Legacy

To [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt(s).


::You know how to do this. You know how to win this.::

“So does everyone else here.” Liezhta strapped the talking stick to her back – talking stick, ha, her ancestors had possessed a horrible sense of humor – and tried to ignore its whispers.

It didn’t work, of course. Ever since her aunt had passed down the family goat-crook (and what family had goat-crooks they passed down? Liezhta’s of course, the family that produced more goat-wives and goat-husbands than any other three families on the mountain), ever since she’d first wrapped her hand around the ancient, twisted root-wood stick, the blasted thing had been talking in her head.

::You have several advantages that nobody else here has. One, you have me.::

It turned out the stick was an ancestor – or, at least, that was what it claimed. There was a family member named Ketkez or Ketkezhie, long back in the history, who had been, not a goat-spouse, but a herder and breeder of goats nonetheless. And, if such a thing was possible, the few notes in family records suggested Ketkez/hie was the type of person who would, given an option, live forever to nag their descendants.

::In another sense, you also have me; you have the blood passed down to you. Your family. You’re strong, fast, and clever::

“But I’m working with an unknown team. It’s only me from the family.” Liezhta checked the lacings on her boots, checked the braiding on her hair, and settled her hat snugly over everything. She’d have to stop arguing with a talking stick soon, and get on with it.

::And that’s a pity. In the old days, the whole family would compete, and we almost always won::

“Well. This is the new days.” With the way things were going, they might not even need goat-wives much longer. But for today, there was the race. She waved at the others, gathered by the shallow sledge. “Hello.” Liezhta bowed, while in her head Ketkez/hie grumbled about changing times. “I’m Liezta, and I’ll be your third runner in the human goat race today.”



Goat-bride information: here & here.

Information Liezhta does not have, but is useful for setting here.

Liezhta is pronounced LEEZH-tuh.

ZH stands for the buzzy sound of the “s” in our words “pleasure” or “casual”.

Ketkez/hie is pronounced ket-KEZH-(ee)

A root-wood shepherd’s (goat-herd’s) crook might look like this


Want more words, or just really like this post? Drop some money in the tip jar!


(the tip jar is a kitty for reasons)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/794483.html. You can comment here or there.

Pre-story: Tairikie a year earlier

From [community profile] dailyprompt, 2013-10-25: “getting dressed for a special occasion”

This is in the setting of my upcoming nano project, in timeline, the cold-season before school begins.

“Tair-tair, hurry up.”

It wasn’t so much that Tairiekie’s father was rushing her as that he’d called three times in the last half an hour, and that he kept using her baby-name. She was at least a little past being called that.

“Almost ready, father.” She tugged the sleeves of her under-shift straight.

It was new; the whole outfit was new. The festival of Tienaabaa1 was about new creations. It was also many layers thick, because the festival of Teinaabaa took place on the shortest days of the year.

“Do you think that my project will win an award?” It was her last year competing in the children’s level. She had won an award every year before, but she’d only taken first place twice.

“I am sure you will do us proud. Are you dressed yet, Tair-tair?”

“Almost.” She had done the embroidery herself; she tugged her overvest to fit better over what was supposed to be a chest and wasn’t, quite, yet. The loose vest looked more like a child’s clothing than a grown woman’s, but all the decoration made it look loved and proper, at least.

Four layers of blue swished back at her in the silvered mirror in her parents’ room. Blue, for Tienaabaa. Blue for winter. Blue for the engineers, her mother, her father… and likely her as well.

She clattered down the stairs in her dyed-blue boots. “I’m ready.” Everyone at the festival would know she was loved and cherished. Everyone was going to know how brilliant her festival demonstration was, too.

Her father kissed the top of her head. “You will make your parents proud, Tairiekie.”

  1. . Tienaabaa (TEEN-ah-bah) is the deity of the wind and the water, the mind and creation. Formerly Tienebrah, (Tee-EN-eh-brah), the word was Calenyenized in the mid 1200’s.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/592959.html. You can comment here or there.

Character notes for Steam!Reiassan – Iesovyenyie

Iesovyenyie
Age 15
Taikie’s roommate

Iesovyenyie is a tall girl, 5’5″, with solid black hair and golden eyes. Her skin is likewise golden, and her chin pointed and stubborn; she’s a bit broader in the hip and shoulder than is common, and a bit more voluptuous than many of the girls her age. She has very full lips.

Her parents named her with an initial vowel, as her mother’s parents had done for her, and the palace office stamped approval of the royal lineage, but she is one of those who has so little royal blood, so diluted, that the initial vowel is a little silly, and seen as putting on airs. Many people where she grew up called her Sovnyie; the less kind called her almost-royal Ienyie.

She can get in quite a snit over that on occasion, and when she does, she’s no fun at all to be around. She is royal, damnit, even if her distance from the throne is measured in hundreds or thousands.

She prefers non-conventional shortenings of her name – Iesovya is her favorite – in part because of the stigma of “almost-royal Ienyie,” and in part because a tyienyie is a noxious lizard.

Iesovyenyie grew up in Lanamer, the capital city, and received her schooling not in a royal-household school but in that of affluent merchants’ children. When you come down to it, airs or not, her father is an artisan crafter of wool goods and her mother a beader and dyer. If they could avoid putting on airs, they could gain much renown in their own fields.

Iesovyenyie has quite a bit of skill in the fiber arts, but went into Mechanics and Engineering to learn how to work with the new mechanical looms, among other reasons (for one, Art House was full but Mech/E had two slots open when she applied).

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/591701.html. You can comment here or there.

Character notes for Steam!Reiassan – Gaikvya

Gaikvya
Age 15
Taikie’s roommate

Gaikvya comes from the east coast, an area which, even in 1750 R, is fairly isolated from the rest of Calenta. The spine of mountains on the east of the continent serves as a difficult-to-pass barrier most of the time, impossible in the wintertime; the boat travel down around the southern tip of the continent is prohibitively long and the icebergs make travel around the northern end impossible.

The people on the east coast have ended up generally shorter than the rest of the country, with chestnut-brown hair that has a tendency to wave and sometimes even curl, skin darker brown than even most of the ‘pure Calenyena,’ and copper-hued eyed.

Gaikya has that look, as well as a more slender build than most of the rest of the continent, almost boyish; her people mature late and slow. They are sometimes called “sira-touched” by the superstitious.

She stands just under 5′ tall, and wears her hair in thin complicated braids. Her hair is curly, although she almost never lets it out of the braids. She speaks with a lilt to her voice, has a very hard time with s and v sounds, and clips her k sounds harder than is now the fashion.

She is uncertain about coming to school and will spend much of the year homesick; her people are fishers, have been fishers for centuries, and she is very much a fish out of water on the other coast, with no fishing nets to knot and no lobster cages to repair.

She will lose herself in her mechanics classes – the reason she, alone of her entire settlement, was chosen for the Academy – spending time trying to invent a better lobster trap, a better boat.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/591445.html. You can comment here or there.

Notes on Sira and Aether for Steam!Calenta/Edaly Academy

On Sira and Aether

Sira is the ancient word for the force that underlies the world. It’s actually a word from the ancient Tabersi (the predecessors of the Bitrani) that was sound-shifted into Calenyen; the Bitrani say shira..

The word sira fell out of favor around 1400 R, or approximately 400 years after the Rin and Girey story; the Academy story takes place in 1750 R (after the discovery of the continent of Reiassan). People didn’t so much stop believing in sira as start feeling that their explanations for it were too credulous, too superstitious, and too rooted in the very-powerful Temples of the Three. They wanted to understand more.

Enter the concept of aether.

This is another Bitrani word. The Calenyena call it aatur, simply using the Bitrani word shifted for a sound they find comfortable. Some scholars call it iezhyetar (from Iezhet, air, and ietar, power), but the term has not gained a great deal of popularity; ancient Bitrani sounds as if it has more gravitas to their ears.

As the scholars in 1750 R understand the aether (whatever they call it), the aether is an underlying force of the universe. It exists wherever two pieces of the world rub together, and can be harvested from these areas with the careful application of mechanical apparati or the very, very careful application of straight concentration and mental fortitude.

Very few scholars approve of the second method, however, because it has a feel very much like that of magic, and everyone knows that magic is bunk.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/590530.html. You can comment here or there.

Character notes for Steam!Reiassan – Kotnelbyotke and Ledryainryie

Kotnelbyotke (Kotke)
Age: 15
One of Enrie’s two roommates.

Kotke is from the far far North, where a group of Bitrani refugees have been living for hundreds of years. She’s got hair so blonde it’s almost white, ice-blue eyes, and snow-pale skin. The red, teal, and purple of the Diplomacy and Law uniform makes her look even paler.

She wears her hair in the low-on-the-neck looped braids that are as much a mark of her township as the pale coloration is; ribbons of her House colors are woven through the braids.

She is short, barely over 5′ tall, and a little more stocky than Calenyena norm, being built like a small tank, designed to survive the frigid winters and barely-better summers. She’s soft-spoken by native habit, and a little lost here at school.

Homesickness plagues Kotke through her year at school. She perseveres, however; she is attending the Academy and majoring in Diplomacy because she knows the remote townships like her own need representation, and thinks that this is the best way to get it. She is not the most brilliant student, but she may be the most devoted.

Ledryainryie (Ledryie)
Age: 15
The other of Enrie’s two roommates

Like Taikie, Ledryie has the ethnic Calenyena look. She has a short nose with a bit of an upturn, a very pointed chin, and a high forehead ; she wears two narrow braids looped low on her forehead to differentiate herself from dozens of other girls in her home city who looked much the same.

She’s about 5’6 and broad-hipped, broad-shouldered, and slender in between. She has the best-tailored clothes of anyone in her dorm, because she tailors them herself.

Ledryie is a bit vain, in a conscious-about-her-appearance sort of way. She was a scholarship girl from primary into secondary school, and earned money working for the school to pay for clothing to look as nice as the more affluent girls.

She was born Lyedra; the Academy allowed her to change her name to reflect the status she is working towards.

She’s a brilliant student, and sometimes forgets to concentrate on her work.


Names in Calenyen culture
(Note to self: cement when Calenyen and when Calenyena. The people are Calenyena. The Language is Calenyen. The country is Calenta. The culture…?

About Lyedra/Ledryainryie – this is mostly a matter of affectation in length. She is doing her best to “pass” as a daughter of affluent parents, merchant princes, if you will, a family of skilled trades. They tend to give their children longer names, where farmers, unskilled laborers, tend to give their children short names. Rin. Noni. Lyedra.

Secondly, nouns with a palatalized first consonant are classified as “not-useful, unskilled, crap.” (Ly vs. L.) (NON palatalized first-consonant nouns are “Useful, skilled.”)

As others have pointed out, an initial vowel is saved for royalty and the children thereof, Enarienarie, Arinyanka, Edaledalendu (and thus the tendancy for going for very long names. The translation of many of these things is lost in an old variant of Calenyen, where the name might mean something like The-stars-shined-down-brightly-shining. (yes, with the redundancy.)

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/590332.html. You can comment here or there.

Brainstorming help requested: planning auction for upcoming Serial

I’m making a new setting! (I’m sure you’ve noticed)
Actually, I’m making two, but Edally Academy (Steam!Goats) is going to be my nano project. So that’s the one I’m thinking about now.

Serials take money to start: ad money, art, domain name, possibly server space. Having a seed account will mean I can start out in January with as pretty a setting as I like.

For the below list, the school has nine Houses, covering fields of study.
All of them are named for former students who had mighty achievements.
Several of them, thus, have had more than one name over the years.
The three main characters are each in a separate House.

I’m thinking of offering the following things for auction:

  • Naming rights on:
    • A Protagonist’s House
    • A background Hous
    • a former House name
    • a Head of a House (cameo)
    • a background teacher (cameo)
    • a student (cameo)

     

  • Create an animal that will appear in the story
  • Create a dish of food that will appear in the story
  • Create a ~thing~ or device that will appear in the story

Two questions:
Whoops, three:

 

  1. Do you think this will garner any interest at all?
  2. Do you have any other ideas for auction items?
  3. Suggested starting bids?
  4. Less is more? Or more is more? (i.e., cut this list down, expand on it, or it’s good)?

Also, I know I was wrong, there’s four.

If you have not yet answered What do YOU want to see in Steam!Calenta? and think you might have interest in the serial, please go put in your feedback. <3

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/587847.html. You can comment here or there.

Worldbuilding: The Academy

The Empress Edalleddallendu Academy of Higher Learning at Ilelteddez

The Edally Academy was begun approximately one thousand years ago, in the time of the Emperor Eleddeltendel, who started four such academies around the country, naming them all after his ancestors. It occupies a place just outside the old walls of Ilelteddez, (ocean-on-land, seaport), a coastal city between the Arran Cities and Lannamer.

When it was first built, it was a single tower with three outbuildings. As the school expanded, three more towers were built around the first tower.

About 500 years ago, the original tower was torn down. Its foundation serves as the basis of a central courtyard now.

Around the courtyard, nine towers reach 6-1/2 stories into the air. These towers were originally both classroom and dormitory; now they serve as dorm space only.

A ring of buildings, connected by archways, circle the towers. The buildings are about 3-1/2 stories tall, and where their roofs touch the towers, a walkway has been built.

Those buildings now serve as primary classroom buildings for the school, however, the first story of each is now given over to teacher & staff apartments.

Outside of those are another ring of buildings, usually about 1 story tall. They serve as adjunct classrooms, outbuildings, and the like.

The towers themselves narrow as they go up, and are constructed of red stone with grey sandstone accents. They are built around a wide, round central chimney, which vents to the sky. Their windows are narrow, and only in recent years have the Art students begun replacing all of the oiled-cloth windows with stained glass to allow some light – and less air – in.

A spiral staircase circles the chimney all the way up; at the landing for each floor there is a small student lounge around a fireplace. The dormitory rooms ring the floor; smaller rooms on the top floor, larger rooms on the bottom. The school has a drop-out/failure rate such that, while it admits 18 students to each House each year, only nine to 12 graduate.

The first-year dorms – at the top – are three to a room, consisting of a fold-up bed, a fold-down desk, a folding chair, and the Calenyena equivalent of a trunk (rather like a garment bag) each. Bedding and upholstery is in House colors.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/587250.html. You can comment here or there.

Character notes for Steam!Reiassan – Instructor Getalréta

Instructor Getalréta
Female

The Head of the Diplomacy and Law/Counting & Accounting House, Instructor Getalréta is a leonine woman in her late fourties.

She wears her steel-gray hair in a nine-braid strand (http://www.circleworks.org/hairbraiding.htm) with three side braids at each temple; she keeps beads on the side beads which she uses for abaci; the braids reach to mid-back.

She wears the colors of her House (http://artventrix.tumblr.com/post/64238570666/right-so-based-on-this-post-made-a-loose)- purple, teal, and red – prominently in a skirted outfit like thus (http://artventrix.tumblr.com/post/23457416205/i-am-ambivalent-about-these-colors-oh-well-i); generally the overtop and bottom skirt are red and purple, teal, and variations on those three colors feature in the other layers. She is a tall woman by Calenyena standards, at 5’7″, and has long chosen to simply be taller and wears heeled boots.

She’s gone a bit thick in the waist and a bit thick in the face over the years. Her nose is small and upturned, a classic Calenyena nose, and her mouth is wide and generous.

She teaches Accounting, primarily, although she has taken a hand at teaching all of the classes in her House at once time. She makes a point of teaching the Basics class every year, as well as the Graduating class, and writes all of the exams for all of the Accounting classes.

She’s a cheerful woman, often smiling, generally friendly with all of the new students. She’s not motherly, but can often find an anecdote or a little quest to cheer up homesick first-years.

She had two children of her own early on; one she lost to the war, and the other married a princeling. Her husband himself was a princeling, so she is connected to the royal family, albeit a bit distantly. In her youth, she worked as an accountant and business manager after graduating from the Aneskan Academy in Ossulund. She worked her way to the top of the House by, as she has often put it, simple addition and subtraction.

Her husband is currently in ill health, which makes Getalréta a little less pleasant than she normally is.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/586201.html. You can comment here or there.

Getting Ahead of Myself: Character notes for Steam!Reiassan – Saydri

Saydri – (SAY-dree)([personal profile] thnidu?)
15 years old
Male

Saydri is a blonde, as the far South people still tend to be – his hair is sandy blonde, his eyes are blue, and his skin is tanned, but still paler than either of the other two. He’s build tall and broad, but hasn’t really grown into it yet; he has big hands and big feet, but his body doesn’t have the breadth of chest yet that it probably will. He stands almost a head taller than the two girls.

He has the long, almost-pointed-seeming nose that’s common in ethnically Bitrani people, and thin, pale eyebrows that almost vanish into his skin

He grew up in a rather fanatical household, deep in the South, where rebellion is still a whispered idea. His family is very deeply religious, in the old form that is not practiced anywhere else, and they speak Bitrani, which has fallen from use everywhere else on the continent.

He’s quiet, shy-seeming, with a fiery temper that boils just under the surface and will erupt at the oddest provocation.

He was “chosen” for the school by a government project that seeks to make sure Calenyen ideas are percolated through the youth of the whole country, and he does not particularly want to be here.

He needs to learn to control his temper, to find a balancing point between his faith, his nationalism, and the reality of the world he lives in. He will struggle with the education and the language and find his own identity.

Also, there will be clothing shenanigans.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/580503.html. You can comment here or there.