Alder's Grove

And I made up a bunch of them to fit This paper doll to see if I could get the layering down.


...there really should be at least one more skirt layer...

This is Rin-Era, someone working in a middle-status job, like a city bureaucrat and --I just realized I didn't check the buttoning side--

Oh, good. they all button to the right hip. Even if there's a sort of excessive amount of decorative buttoning.

I tell you, button-maker has to be a high-status job in Reiassan.

Edited to add: http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/photo/album/3134?page=1 the whole scrapbook!

(From here)

Basic Questions
What is your full name? What name do you go by?
Arienyankarina, Rin
(Ah-reen-nyan-kar-in-nuah)
Do you have any other nicknames? Where did they come from?
Ariena - standard shortening of long names in my country
(Ah-reen-na)
What is your age?
I have had twenty-five birthdays
What is your birthday?
I was born in the rainy season, on the first day the rain came as water and not snow.
Where are you from?
Lannamer, the capital of Calenta
Where are you living now?
Oniarika, a city on the Bitrani-Calenyen border

Basic Questions
What is your full name? What name do you go by?
Girey Tel Darion, son of Fenry Ron Darion, king of Bithrain
Do you have any other nicknames? Where did they come from?
Prince, your lordship, your highness
What is your age?
Twenty-three
What is your birthday?
The first festival of Veignevar in the hot seasons
Where are you from?
The capital of Bithrain
Where are you living now?
Oniarika, a city on the Bitrani-Calenyen border

To describe the fashion of Reiassan, I need to describe, quickly, the history of the two people of that continent.
( history )

And now what little I know about the Callennan fashion. First, historically.
( fashion-history )
And then, steam era:
( steam-fashion )

ETA: Climate
The capital, Lannamer, is like... a bit colder than Toronto. Coastal, but protected, but north-cold. The far South is a bit like the Carolinas. And in Steam-Era they do have some sort of indoor heating.

EETA: Etc.

Right-buttoned indicates skilled, left-buttoning indicates unskilled.
Curly hair is considered exotic the way red hair is in modern US.

Note: I'm not a scholar of history, at all at all at all. Please be kind when pointing out logical inconsistencies!!

A rough history of the people who would become the Callanthe

Timeline numbers from R - discovery of Reiassan (the continent)

(??? BR)
The proto-Callanthe are goat people. They begin as a small tribe of people in the south of Founding-Continent, a group who discovered the advantages of domesticating the wild goats that lived in the mountains near their hunting grounds.

[horses domesticated around 4000 BCE IRL, goats ~~8000-9000 years ago. So "began" is a long time ago even by this timeline... which corresponds loosely to the time of Christ IRL]

The proto-Callanthe were cultural borrowers, appropriators, and thieves; they collected other tribes not so much by conquering them as by assimilating them. In the mountainous south of the Founding Continent, the tribes all came from a very similar stock to begin with (having probably spread out from a small group that came over the mountains), so, at first, this was essentially re-integration.

Once the proto-Callanthe's territory expanded far enough to run into the unknown people on the West and the proto-Bitrani on the East, the cultural appropriation more often turned to war. The proto-Bitrani, too, had developed cities and seafaring, and some of the proto-Callanthe were intrigued enough to, rather than fight, war, conquer, steal, and assimilate, simple immigrate, acculturate, assimilate, and steal.

Centuries went by this way. Cultures shifted. Wars happened. The population of proto-Callanthe in the proto-Bitrani nations-now-a-single-theocracy had grown to a vocal but generally disenfranchised minority. More importantly for this story, the proto-Bitrani had grown to fill their available land - and the land to the West was still full of warlike proto-Callanthe. They were pushed up against the water - so they started exploring the seas.

(we're almost to R)

As discussed here and on LJ, I'm going to do this meme for a few characters (I'm rotating seasonal sibs to not totally overwhelm myself).

Questions 3 & 4 are here and on LJ.

Questions 7 & 8 are here and on LJ.

5.) What’s your character’s ranking on the KINSEY SCALE?
( Read more... )
6.) Describe your character’s happiest memory.
( Read more... )

As discussed here and on LJ, I'm going to do this meme for a few characters (I'm rotating seasonal sibs to not totally overwhelm myself).

Feel free to suggest another character, and I'll work through them in rotation.

Question 1 here and on LJ.

Question 3 here and on LJ.

2.) What are your characters most prominent physical features?
( Read more... )

Meeks has drawn a sketch of Rin and her goat!

I encourage you to go comment on the pretty sketch!

(See also her sketch of ysabetwordsmith's poem Unfolding Wings)

Posted here

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.

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/