Hi
I’ve started to write the story of Beryl going through Aunt Mary’s journals.
Which means I really need to be able to place Aunt Mary on the timeline.
Preference is earlier but American so obv. not TOO early; I also need to know or name the Aunt that came before her.
1789 is the earliest I can go and be in the timeline that the Rochester NY area was settled IRL.
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
Today’s Poll Picked the setting of my current impulse project, Digging for Pants.
Okay this is going to be FUN!
Today’s #WorldBuildingWednesday is a setting I dreamed up for my incomplete #NanoWrimo 20…18? story The Jeweled Pomegranate , which could loosely be described as
*
Academics Having Adventures
+ Magical Items
+ Forced to Be Together (via said Magical Items)
+ A Ruined Wold.
*
So! The Ruins! In a time Before, the world was hit with a series of what are now called subside-ances – pretty much semi-magical sinkholes big enough to swallow, say, the Smithsonian.
That is… almost all I know.
I know there are universities with research professors (& grad students) who they send to explore in these places, either for “grave robbing” (they’re not inherently graves) or information acquisition, and all that grey area in between.
And I know that magical items *definitely* exist.
Oh, and that money exists.
So! I’m asking you: ask me questions! Help me work on #WorldBuilding this world of… exploring a previous era of the world!
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
How did the children of Danu become royalty?
Ah, an interesting question from the left there. Okay. The children of Danu are royalty because they declared themselves such.
And that is a documented fact, so I’m not risking myself in any way with this question.
The children of Danu came here – to California, to North America – when hundreds and thousands of other people were immigrating here, and they found a place where they could lay claim.
Their powers weren’t as strong back then as they are now, but “in the land of the blind” and all that. There’s no indication in historical records of any specifics, but considering what Queen Larissa is known to be able to do, one can extrapolate backwards to what her ancestors may have been able to do, and a woman with the ability to, for instance, read her opponents’ minds or convince them to do what she says, convince them to love her, convince them that she is the proper person for a position or simply blackmail them very effectively.
Again – there is no proof or even written suggestions that the early Queens and Duchesses of Tír na Cali used any of those powers on anyone. None of the contemporary histories mention anything of the sort – the women of Danu’s children of that era were immensely charismatic, and that is documented and also unsurprising. Many women of the Danu today are also very charismatic.
But they created the nation and, in doing so, they created the hierarchy and the positions and titles which made them royal. And thus they are royalty.
And that is the story that the history books tell, and that is the story that I’m going to tell up here.
This is a follow-up to two weeks ago’s “TIR Talk” post – feel free to ask more questions on any of the Worldbuilding Wednesday posts!
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
Last week I was taking questions on the Aunt Family and magic! I got two.
Eseme asked: Much of their magic seems to be craft based, and involves imbuing magic in items. Does this only work on handmade objects?
I imagine if you were sitting at a mechanical knitting loom or fabric loom and putting all of your magic and will into it, you could probably imbue magic into its creation as well, but I think that’s not as easy — it takes more concentration & attention to the magic – than doing it the “old-fashioned” way.
Imbuing an object that you haven’t made at all with magic – a trinket from the store – would require a lot more power, and thus would usually be part of some sort of ritual, generally involving several casters at once.
🍰
@SamTTC on Twitter asked: Is there any relationship between calorie cost to the caster relative to the energy output of a spell?
That’s a good question. I’ve definitely done that in other settings – Fae Apoc, Tír na Cali for sure.
In Aunt Family, I’d say that there IS a relationship, but the ratio depends on the strength of the caster and the strength of the connections she has to pull on.
That is, the same spell and effect would take much more physical energy for a weak caster with no family (or family land) to draw on, than for one of the Aunts of a Family, especially if she was on family land – running a marathon vs. walking a mile, for a bit of an exaggeration.
👩🌾
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
It’s #WorldBuildingWednesday!
Today I am soliciting questions on my Rural Fantasy ‘Verse, the Aunt Family, and if you like specifics, specifically on the magic in that world.
The Aunt Family is one of the themes available for my Great NanoWrimo Prompt Call, which is still running! See here on Ko-fi, and see many stories posted this month here on Patreon.
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
So @Shutsumon started doing Worldbuilding Wednesday on Mastodon and that got me thinking and so then I started and…
well, here’s last week’s post. I’m going to try to post them a week after I toot (post on Mastodon) them.
Is anyone interested in these? They do not seem to be getting comments. 🎣
The mark of a royal[1] in Cali is generally considered to be threefold, with a fourth not widely acknowledged but no less real.
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
So @Shutsumon started doing Worldbuilding Wednesday on Mastodon and that got me thinking and so then I started and…
well, here’s last week’s post. I’m going to try to post them a week after I toot (post on Mastodon) them.
In theory, Stranded World is composed of “Strands” which make up the connections of every thing and being to every other thing and being; certain people can see, manipulate, or read the Strands but they come into existence and eventually fade away on their own in a constant cycle of renewal.
In practice, the Strands that strand-workers read/manipulate are like you took a page full of the very lightest pencil lines going everywhere and then added just a few bright marker lines: strong connections between people or between a person and an animal/plant/thing.
For instance: I have a very strong connection with my husband, a rather strong connection with my cats, and rather strong connections with my grandparent’s house/farm. Compared to my connection to the guy sitting across from me on the bus, the cat I saw at the winery the other week, the apartment we lived in for a couple months when I was 20, those connections are going to be thick and easy to pick out.
Sometimes, you end up with “Weird” connections:
People who met for three minutes at a bus stop who form a Strand so thick it pulls them back together, so that they reinforce that strand, so that it pulls them together again.
A place that takes on so much of its own character that it holds on to connections; not only do people remember it for a long time, but it remembers them, and so the strands are no longer dependent on living memory.
A moment in time will, on very rare occasion, create connections, which form a line between all of the people experiencing that moment and anchor people to that moment. In some cases, it makes time warp strangely around it, such that even thinking about it for too long can create wrinkles much later on.
Sometimes you end up with places, or animals, or plants that somehow not just form strands — since everyone and everything can do that to some degree — but manipulate them.
There’s a tree in the middle of a forest that likes to loosen some bonds and form others, and you never know until you climb up into its branches which might happen.
There’s a cat who wanders the suburban evenings tangling strands up, leaving a wake of small chaos behind her and caring about as much as she’d care about a ball of yarn.
And there are events which are so tangled up from their very creation that just moving towards them — Burning Man, but only sometimes, for instance; certain marches on certain places; certain prayer circles and certain parties — changes the person moving, for better or for worse.
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
Today, I am feeling uncreative, and so I beg your aid in a story I am writing for the Great NanoWrimo Prompt Call.
I point your attention, if I may, to the world of Things Unspoken.
Cities/places already in existence include
Scheffenon, the Scheif Harbor, high on the Northern Sea (where there are Cornesc-speaking people)
(Scheffenon isnot a Cornesc word, but one from the people who had been here before)
Orschëst, down by the southern border
Corthwin (where the Ash remains unburnt)
the western cities, the ones that had once belonged to an Empire called only To (never the To Empire, the Tovan nation, or anything else, just To)
Here is a very draft map – http://www.lynthornealder.com/2015/04/28/what-happens-in-meetings-a-draft-map-of-part-of-the-unspoken-world/
So! I need another city. There’s sort of obviously not one language to this Empire, so it doesn’t have to sound like those above, but should sound… “exotic?” Well, not Springfield or Washington, let’s go with that.
(Most of my named people have Eastern-European-inspired names, just as a note)
Halp?
(If I get more than one, i’ll clearly just have to write another story)
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
Originally posted on Patreon in July 2018 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
Want more?
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
It’so June WorldBuilding So I’m building Worlds! Aerax/Expectant Woods over on Patreon, and Bear Empire and a new thing here!
(mostly Bear Empire now, though I’ll make sure I at least post everything I wrote on the Ezra IV Colonies)
As a whole, the Bear Empire works on a mostly-capitalist structure; that is, people sell goods and services for currency to buy other goods and services.
The exceptions to this are as follows:
* There are still large portions of the Empire (mind you, not lovely portions or anything, but portions) where land is free. As long as you have four adults or more willing to agree to live there for at least five years, the local governor will build you a house and a barn and give you up to 200 acres (although in many cases measuring those acres is complicated. Ever measure horizontal land up the side of a mountain?).
* Taxes to the Shire, the [governor-area] and the Empire cover first and primarily infrastructure, but a portion is put aside every year for the following:
– relief for areas stricken by famine or disaster (inside the borders or, to a lesser degree, outside of them)
– Aid for the poor
– basic reading, writing, and religious education for all children from weaning to prepubescence.
This last one is new and still controversial, since it did require a raise in taxes across the board.
* Within any town or shire, if someone has come upon hard times, there is a “10% rule.” That is, rather than tithes to the church, people put aside 10% of their goods and harvests as they can, and will give, generally, 1/3 of that to any they encounter who have come on hard times
(on the other hand, if someone is known to abuse that charity, there is a thing called the Jackal House, a very small building on the outskirts of town that has only the bare necessities to survive. If you find yourself escorted the Jackal House, you can know that you have tried the patience of a town and stretched their 10% further than they are willing to accept.
The primary manner one gets out of the Jackal House, save from moving to another town, is by performing some act of service for every member of the town. )
Questions? Thoughts? Tell me!
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
It’s World-Building June! So I’m building Worlds! Aerax/Expectant Woods over on Patreon, and Bear Empire and a new thing here!
It’s also June WorldBuilding – so we’re getting two sets of prompts.
Still going on the catch-up!
The language of the Empire of the Bear is technically three related languages that have many similarities but are not always mutually comprehensible. (And three others which are used in very small sections, one of which nobody can understand)
The language family as a whole of the five larger languages is a liquid tongue with a lot of vowels and active tongue use, a popping plosive, and tonal mood shifts and sometimes meaning shifts. The Lynx language tends to drop initial and final consonant sounds and sometimes repeat vowels; the Fox language involves repetition and a lot more popping sounds, as well as some trills. The Cat people have a lot more trills in their language as well as a whistle-sound. And the Elk people, only one word in twenty is recognizable between their dialect and the others. Theirs tends towards complicated vowel combinations and often seems to require hand gestures.
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
Originally posted on Patreon in June 2018 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
It‘s June World Building! And I continue with some more questions from Inspector Caracal’s List!
🌋
11- How many different governments does the story interact with? How are they different or similar, or why is the one isolated?
Nimbus really doesn’t interact with any of the Sky Island Governments, but as mentioned before, there are four of them. Her parents belong to the academic group and live on one of those Islands (although I may need to check that).
The Sky Islands are intermingled only with each other, of course, and do not touch the land below. Many of the differences and similarities were mentioned above in “Who Lives in your World?”; notably, while msot of the people on the Sky Islands share a single broad set of values, each government represents a subsection of those values.
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
It’s World-Building June! So I’m building Worlds! Aerax/Expectant Woods over on Patreon, and Bear Empire and a new thing here!
It’s also June WorldBuilding – so we’re getting two sets of prompts.
Still going on the catch-up!
Major holidays in the Bear Empire include:
* A major feast near the end of autumn
* a day called the “day of sleep” after the first major frost.
* A spring-thaw celebration
(these three above together are referred to as the Hibernation festivals)
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
It’s World-Building June! So I’m building Worlds! Aerax/Expectant Woods over on Patreon, and Bear Empire and a new thing here!
Bear Empire
(The setting for Carrone and Deline, Chased in the Bear Empire)
1. Tell us about your world, what’s it about?
The Bear Empire is an arctic nation spanning the northernmost part of a landmass and bordering at least one other nation (Dekleg).
The weather there tends towards the frigid in winter and the temperate in the summer.
Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.
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rix_scaedu asked for cats. Here's some cats, with my camp nano protaganist. clare_dragonfly asked: Do the three different capitalized types use different kinds of magic?lilfluff: just what was the nature of the apocalypse in The Planners?
timeasmymeasure
