work in progress

Resolve not to resolve

/ Melanie Marttila / 5 Comments

(A.K.A. Just make reasonable goals and reach them!)

New Years Resolutions (1/52)

New Years Resolutions (1/52) (Photo credit: lucidtech)

This is the time of year when everyone starts off fresh and hopeful and makes a bunch of promises to themselves without first considering whether they really want to keep them or not.

My advice is to take a step back and give this whole resolution thing some careful consideration.

First, try not to get caught up in the whole resolution furor and just make SMART (more on this in a bit) goals that you can actually achieve.

Review these goals periodically and change them if you need to.

That’s what irks me about resolutions.  For many, they hold the impression of being set in stone.  As human beings, we change, so will our goals.  Be flexible and make adjustments where necessary.  Shit happens.  Put another way, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

If you abandon your expensive gym membership after three months and fail to lose twenty pounds by June, then, like as not, either the goal you set for yourself was unrealistic, or something happened to make the goal unrealistic to pursue in the way you first imagined.

I set goals all the time, sometimes they change and sometimes they don’t work out the way I planned.  So I change course, adjust my expectations, and set more goals.  Goals are healthy and shouldn’t just be reserved for January 1.

This year, resolve not to resolve 🙂

Step one: think about it

The first step, as always, is to give your goals some consideration.  Do you really want to achieve them?  Are you setting a goal because of external factors?

Take the “lose twenty pounds by June 1st” goal, something a lot of people list in their resolutions, sometimes every year.  Are you truly invested in making this happen?  Are you only doing it because your stepsister called you fat at Christmas dinner?  Are you happy at what others might consider twenty pounds overweight?  Do you feel healthy?  Do you otherwise conduct yourself in a healthy manner?

Once you’ve determined whether you really want to do this, think about ways that you might be able to make this happen, and how you can make the goal easier to achieve.

An expensive gym membership may not be the best choice given your circumstances.

It might be better to enlist your friends and family in the project, get a support system gathered around you.  Often, when you put your goals “out there” in concrete form, that is, you tell people what you want to do and why, it’s less acceptable to renege on the deal.

In this case, you can tell your family that you want to begin to eat healthier and get their support (yes, Mom, we’ll eat fish three times a week with you and we’ll try soy if we can have a day off on the weekend to indulge our collective red meat/fat/sweet cravings).  Tell your friends to help you make wise choices at the restaurant without making you feel bad in the process.  Tell your mom that while you think her roast of beef with Yorkshire pudding is drool-worthy, that this year you might want to try some Cornish hens and green veggies for your birthday dinner instead.  It’s the little things that add up to goals achieved over time.

Is there something that you can buy that’s not expensive and will still facilitate your achievement of your goal?  For example, maybe you know that a full, sweaty workout is not for you, but that you could commit to walking every day.  So buy yourself some properly-fitted walking shoes, maybe some clothes that will make walking in inclement weather less unpleasant.  Perhaps you could buy yourself a simple journal to diarize your eating habits and emotional responses to food.

Recognize when you start seeing or feeling results and give yourself a reward.  Maybe by March, with your reasonable eating and exercise plan, you’ve lost eight to ten pounds.  Celebrate by getting some clothes in a smaller size.

Think that you feel pumped enough to up your game?  Maybe now’s the time to buy a well-fitted pair of running shoes and see when the members of the local Running Room are starting their next beginners class.  Save the marathon for next year.  There are always more goals you can set in your future.  Leave room for them, work up to them gradually.

Setting and achieving goals is a continual process, not a “Ding! I win!” moment.  If you’re not invested in the goal, if the wish to attain it does not come from within, and if you fail to plan for success, then, as the saying goes, you’ve only planned to fail.  Then again, planning the hell out of something can be overrated …

Back to that SMART thing

Smart goals

Smart goals (Photo credit: shaggy359)

So SMART is an acronym which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.  While the acronym is drawn from project and time management in a business context, it can be applied to personal projects as well.

I’ll let you explore making SMART goals on your own, if you’re so inclined.  Just Google it, and you’ll see how much is out there.

Some people benefit from a well-structured approach.  Some people don’t.  This is why the thinking part comes first.  You have to know yourself well enough to know what approach you’ll respond best to.

Advice from better minds than mine

Dean Wesley Smith wrote an excellent series on goal-setting in writing over November and December:

Here’s the ever-amusing but always on-target, Chuck Wendig’s ruminations on the topic:

Writer’s Digest has a few thoughts on the topic as well.

Finally, for those whose 2013 includes a new novel:

If you follow any blogs whatsoever, you will find lots of advice on goal-setting.  Research is a good idea, but always, think about it for a bit.  You don’t want to adopt someone else’s methods or techniques blindly.  That’s one of my biggest takeaways from 2012.

Whether it’s with respect to platform development, writing, blogging, weight loss, or any other aspect of your life, to thine own self be true.

Now … what you’ve all been waiting for … drum roll please …

Mel’s resolutions reasonable and malleable goals

My goals are largely determined by my life circumstances and as my life is quite chaotic right now, my goals need to be adjusted periodically because … well, shit happens.

Personal:

First, I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do 🙂

Though it would be nice to lose some weight, I feel pretty good and I am happy with my overall health, so, though it may be a disappointment to some, I will not be quitting smoking, becoming a workout maniac, or going on some fad diet that will only make me miserable.

What I will do:

  • Walk more (not specific or measurable because any gain in this area will satisfy me).  I used to walk a lot, like 60-75 km per week.  I’d walk Nuala in the morning, walk home from work in the evening, go for longer walks on Saturdays, and hikes in the bush on Sundays.  I even jogged for a few years.  When my dad went in the hospital in 2010, I stopped walking home and started walking to the hospital to visit him after work in stead.  When he was admitted to the Nursing home, I stopped walking so that I could get home and drive out to visit him with my mom.  When he passed away, I really didn’t feel much like walking at all.  Last year, Nuala developed arthritis and now she has an ACL injury and that’s curtailed some of the morning walks.  I do want to start walking more though, and I have purchased a new set of waterproof boots to make the decision to walk home after work in the winter easier, but I’ve found, since I’ve hit 40, that my tolerance for inclement weather has definitely decreased.  I’ve also got a referral from my doctor to get my orthotics updated, so that will also help.
  • Continue to eat sensibly.
  • Start massage therapy.  My colleagues at work rave about this, and I can only hope that it will help me as well.
  • Continue to accept and love myself as I am.
  • Take care of myself, my husband, my mom, and my dog.
  • Be the best friend I can be.

Professionally (day-job):

I’ve recently been advised that my acting assignment will be extended to June, with a further potential extension to September.  So, given that … I aim to:

  • Continue to learn and master the duties of my position.
  • Achieve my training certification.
  • Learn to become as a leaf in the wind.  This is important.  With all the change occurring at work these days, I never know what’s going on and half the time, events are not stable until after they’re already in motion.  Even then, cancellations are possible.  I fully understand my limitations and commit to do the best I can within those restrictions.  That’s all I can promise and I’m good with that.  We’ll see if my manager is good with that too 🙂

Professionally (writing life):

  • Finish my current edit of Initiate of Stone (I’m nearly there, at long last).
  • Send my MS for a professional content edit.
  • Start on a new novel (haven’t decided yet which one).
  • Submit to anthologies and calls for submissions of interest to me throughout the year.
  • Revise IoS given the content edit.
  • Share out to select beta-readers.
  • Submit first three chapters to the agent who indicated her interest at the pitch conference I attended.
  • Submit the entire revised MS to the editor who indicated his interest.
  • Revise based on beta-reader response.
  • Recommit to my online critique group.
  • Continue to read widely on a variety of subjects and across genres.
  • Participate in Khara House’s I ❤ my blog challenge.  I’ve struggled in recent months with consistency on my blog and I think this is just what I need to get me back up and running.
  • Set up a newsletter via mailchimp when my followers reach 100 (I’m at 85 right now).  This will be quarterly to begin with.
  • Consider a redesign of the blog and (gasp) a hosting service.  Yup.  Thinking about it.  Bears more thought however.  Still shy after last February’s hacking bite.
  • Go on a few writing dates.  Trying to negotiate this with a writing friend, but already have the first “big” one set: Susan McMaster poetry workshop in February.  Yay!

And I think that about covers it.  Notice that I don’t have time frames on any of these goals.  Life/chaos/shit happens, remember?  This is a trick I learned from participant-centered training.  An agenda that does not have time limitations allows for flexibility and adjustment on the fly.

A lot of this will be blogged in coming months, so I’ll keep you up to date on my progress.

What goals have you set for the coming year?  If you call them resolutions, I won’t mind, but please, do share!

The best of Writerly Goodness 2012

/ Melanie Marttila

Well, since I only started blogging (in this incarnation) in March, it’s not been a year yet online, but I’ll give you an idea about what I think has been the best of 2012.

Best movie:  Definitely Cloud Atlas.  I don’t know why, but this movie really had me thinking and feeling.  I know that not everyone shares my inclinations, but Cloud Atlas blew me away.

Kim and I will be going to see The Hobbit tomorrow, but I honestly don’t anticipate that it will impress me as much.  I’ll enjoy the heck out of it, but Cloud Atlas affected me …

Best writing book: (A.K.A writing book porn): The Right to Write.  I’ve had the book on my shelf for years and it wasn’t until the Wordsmith Studio Goodreads group chose it that I actually cracked the cover.  I love Julia Cameron’s philosophy even if I am still struggling with morning pages.  Yum.  Yum.  Yum.

Runners up include Larry Brooks’s Story Engineering and Syd Field’s The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver.

Best fiction: The Hunger Games.  When my Mom read it before I did, I figured I better get around to the dear little thing.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Mind you, Larry Brooks’s 11 part analysis of the book was fantastic too, and made me think that I’d have some substantial writerly lessons to learn from it.

Riding Suzanne Collins’s heals are Hugh Howey’s Wool Omnibus and Juliet Marillier’s Daughter of the Forest, both of which I’m still reading, so I’m not sure, strictly speaking, that they count (!)

Best non-writing, non-fiction book: The Happiness Project, by Gretchin Rubin.  Again, still reading it, but it does speak to the control freak in me 🙂

Best writerly experience: The New York comes to Niagara pitch conference.  Fraught, yes.  Learning experience, double-yes.

Best local arts event: Hands down has to be the Launch of Kim Fahner’s The Narcoleptic Madonna, though Jon Bulter’s The LaCloche spirit: The equivalent light exhibit and Scott Overton’s launch of his novel Dead Air are close seconds.  Nor can I forget the 100 thousand poets for change event in North Bay.  Poetic road trips are the bestest.

Best posts
These have been selected due to the number of all-time views.

  1. Do you dress for success?
  2. The cadre … or should that be cabal?
  3. Feminist lunacy from Battle Chant
  4. Why did I call this category Alchemy Ink?
  5. Eight metaphors for persistence and why you’ll want to read this anyway – my very first post!  Awww … you guys 🙂
  6. Character sketches, part 2: Eoghan
  7. Character sketches, part 3: Dairragh
  8. Rethinking my online strategy
  9. Why spoilers are good for writers
  10. An Interview with Kim Fahner
hAPPY NEW YEAR

hAPPY NEW YEAR (Photo credit: Helgi Halldórsson/Freddi)

I’ll wait until New Years Day to post on resolutions.  So have a happy New Year all, and thanks a bunch for all of your support!

Virtual hugs!

Writerly Goodness.

Where my fascination with language got me

/ Melanie Marttila / 6 Comments

I’ve always loved language.  Well, except in high school when, though I was good at it, I couldn’t wait until grade eleven when French class would not longer be a requirement.  I think that had more to do with my overall dislike of high school rather than any particular issues I might have had with learning French.

In university though, my favourite courses were Old English, Chaucer, and the History of the Language.  I think I had a crush on my OE professor just because of the passion he had for his subject.  He worked up a sweat during his lectures, so enraptured was he with the poetic forms.

I also took Latin for a semester in university and enjoyed that considerably as well.  Plus, during one of my contract jobs at Laurentian, I enrolled in conversational French.  See, I don’t hate it; it’s simply that I have no family and few friends who speak French.  Every time I learn a few things, they quickly fall away from disuse.

More recently, I downloaded a few Oxford lectures from I-Tunes University on Tolkien, and in particular, the linguistic basis for his languages in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  He based his elvish language, in part, on Finnish 🙂  I think I might have mentioned my Finnish heritage once or twice?

Then there’s my husband, Phil.  He started to teach himself Japanese a few years ago, and more recently took some lessons in Chinese through one of the Y’s temporary employees in the Newcomers’ Centre.

Finally, there’s my own fascination with all things Celtic.

So I’m sure it’s hardly surprising that in writing my novel and developing my world, that I’d spend some time on my languages and that a little bit of everything got thrown into the mix.

The old language

This is the language that we might equate with proto-European, a language that we have no way to trace or understand except in its influence on the languages that developed from it.  This is the language that the Tellurin first spoke when communicating with each other, Auraya, and the akhis.

It only survives in the traditional names of the seasons and festivals, the names of the moons, weeks, and days.  It is also the language that the magi use in their rituals, though much of it has been bastardized since there is no written record of the language.

It’s also related to the language of the anogeni, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

I listed all of these, purely made up words, in my world info post.  I’ll just offer a couple of examples for clarification.  “-staya” is the suffix I chose to mean celebration of.  The prefixes combine to explain what celebration.  Kiestaya is the awakening; Anestaya, the engendering, and so on.  “-dranya” means the season of.  Thus, Shoudranya is the season of spring forth; Zaidranya, the season of the baked earth (though most people remember it as the season of the hot sun), etc.

The names of the moons are based on a rudimentary numbering system and you’ll notice the European influence there.

The days of the week are derived from the names of the akhis, which are also words from the old language.  “-akhi” means the spirit of. So Zaidesakhi is the spirit of the earth; Augesakhi, the spirit of the waters, and so forth.

The anogeni language

The anogeni were the special children of Zaidesakhi and Augesakhi.  They never communicated with anyone else and have lived in isolation, so it shouldn’t be surprising that while their language has some words in common with the old language, that it also has many of its own terms.

For their language, some of the words are made up, but others derive from some research into native languages, Ojibwe, Cree, and Oji-Cree, which are all slightly different.  Some Finnish and Japanese influences crept in here too.

Here’s a brief list of some of the words and phrases in anogeni:

  • mejni – eat
  • bizan – be still
  • hine – nothing
  • kabec – wait
  • gajachi – Tellurin (the pale people)
  • dimanzo – sight maker
  • oni – why
  • neesaimeno – prophecy
  • dimanzine – journey (shamanic)
  • mudashkiwine – bad medicine
  • namadiwine – bad thinking
  • bagan – if you/could you
  • gadga – explain, help understand, the ano understand through love
  • nimawe – contents
  • gadashki – love the greatest of the medicines
  • baska – head
  • gada – heart
  • onu mina – little teacher (f)
  • onen mina – little teacher, master (m)
  • no ashkida gadashki – there is no power greater than love
  • sagan nebawin – sword dancing
  • Ashki-Na – Grandmother, Auraya
  • Ashki-An – Auremon
  • Ashki-Nisa – Tryella
  • Namad-Ashki – Yllel, the destroyer
  • anzi – let’s go
  • anzi an dabo – let’s go to the one
  • ish nibi – she tries
  • ni – I am
  • gadana – thank you/I love you (they mean the same thing to the ano)
  • Anoashki – the great mystery (the spirit of the world)

Here is a list of the ashkiwine, or medicines:

agenewa – tea of three herbs; tadawa – cactus; swinnis – mushroom; yudana – woody herb; nabanda – tea again – cleansing; bishido – leafy herb; keshwara – nut (like nutmeg); angali – ground to a paste – placed in the cheek (stains the mouth); guryami – desiccated leaves easily powdered; shouba – like tobacco; nindaya – mushrooms again; gagini – seeds – crushed and held under the tongue.

To find out what they all do, you’ll have to wait for the book 🙂

The eleph language

Latin, Finnish, Japanese, and stuff I just made up.

Here’s another list:

  • finiris – Songmaster
  • sulonis – Dreamsinger
  • kaidin – sourceror/mage
  • damnasca – crazy one
  • shuriah – unwanteds
  • kishida – eleph kata
  • kishan – eleph martial arts
  • kishan-roh – the art of the sword
  • kishani – warrior
  • Felias es durithan – destiny is near
  • Felias es turia – what is your destiny? (formal)
  • Felias mariel es offiri portel – My destiny is to open the way (formal)
  • Tu kolue – I’ll kill you
  • Felarah, dalin – greetings sister
  • astaru – soul mate
  • astara – soul lights
  • umbriel – the shadow court
  • arbraith – special talent with the trees
  • norai, singular noraia – healer, healers
  • anathas – the Council of Elders
  • ardait – bastard
  • Ardai-rhone – the Destroyer – Yllel
  • rhanda – army (rhanda umbrielis)
  • kunia – queen (kunia umbrielis) (kunia me)
  • kaides esse – the powers that be
  • no te agi, astaru me – worry not, home of my soul

So that’s all of the original(ish) languages in Tellurin.  So far.

Next week: world building resources.  I’m certainly no authority.  You don’t have to do what I did, or do it in the way that I did it.  I just like to share 🙂

Have a fantabulous long weekend everyone!

Writerly Goodness, signing off.

The cities of Initiate of Stone

/ Melanie Marttila

World building is winding down.  After this post, I’ll probably have one more about the languages of Tellurin, and another to cover some of the odds and sods I haven’t described elsewhere.  Following that, there will be a final post on world-building resources.

Cities, towns, villages, etc.

I’ll start with Hartsgrove, Ferathainn’s village.  Situated west of the mountains, Hartsgrove is one of many free towns, or free holds.  Except for the Parimi, Haldane, and Espanic lands, which are proper provinces, most of the people who live in the west are clustered into such communities.

The village proper contains The Silver Swan, Willow’s public house, which is a structure half built, and half shaped from a massive oak.  In the back rooms, she brews her beer and ferments her wine.  Her distillery is off-site, for safety’s sake.  The Swan is the closest thing Hartsgrove has to a town hall.  It’s where most community business and assemblies are held.

A small stable, blacksmith, and a builder complete the village’s services.  There is a mill down by the Chance River, built to withstand the seasonal floods, and with a mill-wheel that can be raised and lowered given the water level.

The rest of the village, set well back from the river, consists of families that work on the farms in the surrounding countryside to earn their share of the harvest.  Willow’s orchards and fields (behind The Swan) are tended only by her and her brothers, though they recruit assistance for the harvest.  Even Fer does her share during the sowing and reaping periods.

Hartsgrove is just north of the Deep Forest and many of the trees around the village are ancient.  Think about pictures you might have seen of century trees.  The eleph have shaped their homes from these.

North of the village is a sacred grove, planted hundreds of years before.  It’s where the name of the village derives.  That’s where all of the seasonal festivals are held.  They’re mostly communal affairs, as Hartsgrove isn’t big enough to rate a priest.  They have to petition one to be sent from one of the larger centres for important events like marriages.

Selene and Aeldred share the responsibility of the physical health of both animals and people.

Hartsgrove sends annual tributes to Aurayene, Drychtensart, and Gryphonskeep in the form of food and Willow’s excellent brews.  There is a fair demand for The Swan’s beer, wine, and whiskey.  These might be the village’s only export.

There is no wall.  Only ones made of stone can withstand Vedranya, and there is no quarry nearby.  There is rarely any need of defence, and the men of the village, with Aeldred’s magickal support, are more than equal to the few bandits who choose to try their luck.

Aurayene is a sprawling city state founded by the Parimi.  It is the capitol of Parime, and the spiritual centre of Tellurin.  The Archbishop, the highest ranking prelate in the land, makes his home there, and the Monastery of Aurayene is the biggest of its kind, taking up fully one third of the city’s area.

The Archbishop’s compound and tower are palatial.  Not only the compound, but the city as well, are guarded by massive stone walls.

Aurayene is one of the few cities to have survived the Cataclysm, though only barely.  When the western coast sheered away from Tellurin, Aurayene stood on the very brink.  In succeeding generations, they adapted to their inconvenient perch atop a cliff that dropped several hundred feet to the Jagged Sea below. 

Miners and stone masons excavated The Long Stair, which descended through the stone beneath the city to the floating mass of docks that formed the port below.  A lift was also constructed to convey cargo up the cliff face to the city.

The Chance and the Aurayene Rivers flow respectively south and north of the city, cascading in incredible waterfalls to the sea below.  The land around Aurayene is mostly plain, though the coastal mountains, Les Bras d’Auraya, surround it.

Riversway is essentially a mercantile centre on the Aurayene River a day’s ride out of Aurayene.  Because goods coming into Aurayene from the port side have to be hauled up the cliff, and the city is so well developed, there’s not a lot of space, literal or figurative, to bundle things off to specific destinations.

Riversway serves as the place where shipments are sent in bulk, to be divided and repackaged for shipping further up the Aurayene, or by land into the continent.

Gryphonskeep is on the north shore of the Aurayene River.  Originally built by a discontented Alban lord (Murdo Christie)  who’d left the Island Kingdoms before the Cataclysm, the keep earned its name and reputation by virtue of several gryphon fledglings that the lord managed to capture on his journey through the mountains.

The keep was built for defence with thick walls and multiple sets of doors.  Christie was jealous of his new prize and distinction, and unwilling to lose either.

The aerie tower was built to simulate the gryphons’ mountainous home with broad balconies at the half-way mark and the top level allow the gryphons access.  During Vedranya, these are covered with massive wooden “shutters.”  The gryphons would much rather be up in the mountains, safe above the storms, but they like to humour their Tellurin caretakers.

Gryphonskeep has come into the hands of many lords over the years.  It is both a desirable reward—who wouldn’t want to be the Gryphonskeeper?—and a kind of back-handed compliment—who wants to be exiled to the western wilds?

The west of Tellurin is considered a barbarous and lawless land.  Few families have been eager to assume the burden when they could be living a life of relative comfort in the civilized east.

Killian’s father held Gryphonskeep before him, but his disreputable behaviour and abuse of the noble beasts caused him to be stripped of the honour.  Killian had to fight to prove his right and worthiness to hold Gryphonskeep.  Dairragh might be the first third generation Gryphonskeeper, if he can regain the honour.

Aumenburg is a small village nestled in a valley of the Great Ring Mountains southwest of Kriegstaff.  The mountains are Saxon land.  It is ruined by the time Ferathainn and Dairragh reach it, having been ravaged by Kane’s army and then abandoned to the storms.

Like Hartgrove, it has a grove.  Unlike Hartsgrove’s, Aumenburg’s grove has been forgotten and left to the wild things.  It also happens to be the site of a great sourcerous battle and the resting place of Jareth’s amulet.

Finally, there are five mountain keeps that guard the passes through the mountains.  These were built by the Saxon in the days when defence, or at least provision for travelers and protection from Vedranya, were deemed necessary.  All five keeps were constructed in much the same manner; all tall, rectangular, utilitarian structures built out of the mountains themselves.  Each was built on top of caverns which served as storage and dungeons, the foundations of each keep reaching deep into the stone.

Each has an outer baily, or commons area, and an inner fortification.

That’s it for tonight.  Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

What does everyone else in Tellurin believe?

/ Melanie Marttila

5 religions

Last week, I wrote about the two main religions of the Tellurin (humans): The Faithful, and the Holy Mother Church (HMC).  But what does everyone else in Tellurin believe?

You didn’t think I was going to stop at two, did you?

Well, I’m not.  But I’m not going to go into great gaudy detail about them either.  In the process, you’ll learn a little more about the various inhabitants of Tellurin.

Other Tellurin religions/belief systems

While the Parimi, Haldane, Espanic, Island Kingdoms, Saxon, Sami, and Skaldic all believe to a greater or lesser extend in Auraya and espouse The Faithful religion (some distinctively coloured by their own pagan belief systems), and the Caldone alone believe in the HMC, there are still other Tellurin cultures that believe in neither.

The Nubiin espouse a faith based in the divinity of their ruler, or Osire, and resulting cult of death.  The Osire (a man or woman) is tied to the land, responsible for the weather and tides that provide for a fruitful growing season in a relatively arid region.  Prosperity in the form of abundant crops and livestock result in a long rule, the opposite can result in a short one.

When an Osire ascends, work begins on his or her funerary monument.  The relative greatness of that monument and the treasures enclosed with the deceased is tied to the length of their rule.  Sound familiar?  It should.  The Nubiin are based losely on the Egyptian culture.

In the wake of the Cataclysm, and the advent of the devastating storms of Vedranya, the Nubiin faith was shaken.  If the Osire held no power over the storms, how could they be considered divine?  For nearly a hundred suns, the Nubiin struggled, even adopting a bastardized form of The Faithful religion for a while, but eventually, they returned to their traditions, rationalizing Vedranya as the cost of their prosperity otherwise.

The Hussar of the plains believe that the gods exist, but that they have no interest in what happens in Tellurin.  They believe in the power of a good horse, the strength in their limbs, and the pleasures of a life honourably lived.  They have an ethical code rather than a religion per se.

The Shooksa-Nai of the north-western region of Tellurin still live in a tribal fashion and have an animistic belief system, that is they believe in the spirits of things.  Their shaman are their spiritual leaders, healers, and advisors.  The Shanzu of the Deep Forest are similar.

A word about those pagan belief systems I mentioned off the top.  They relate to the first gods, the akhis.  Most revolve around the lord of the land (Zaidesakhi) and the lady of the waters (Augesahki).  Sacred groves were often consecrated to them.

Non-Tellurin religions

The okante (think orcs) territories are just south of the Shooksa-Nai and they too are a tribal, animistic people, and were largely peaceful until Yllel co-opted them into soul-slavery.  Now they live in fear of the mad god and do his bidding in the hope of saving their people from his wrath.

The krean (think trolls) are a seafaring people and revere the oceans and weather as their deities.  This has its roots in the akhis as well, Augesakhi and Freyesakhi.  Like the okante, they have been enslaved by Yllel and live in a similar fear of him.

The grunden (ogres), who live in the mountains, and blinsies (goblins), who live in the Deep Forest and love to harras the Shanzu, have no religion, but are also enslaved to Yllel.

The anogeni, as I’ve written in the past, were once the hands of Zaidesakhi, the fingers of Augesakhi.  The hidden people are special.  Though they’ve lost both “parents” they live in the belief that they will return to their children.  They have no true religion, because they know the true nature of the gods.  They do not require a structured religious practice as such.

They not only believe in the spirits of things, they actually study them and know them as friends.  There are twelve plants whose spirits have proven especially powerful: the ashkiwine.  It is through their relationships with the spirits that the anogeni practice their form of magic.

Because of their relationship to the akhis, they also know the spirit of the world, which they call the anoashki, the great mystery.  He is their grandfather, and they serve his purpose, one of the primary goals of which is to resurrect the fallen akhis.

Though the anogeni we meet in Initiate of Stone live in the earth, there are other groups of the anogeni that make their homes in the great trees, and in the oceans.  These last are an aquatic form of the anogeni, but they don’t have fish-tails 🙂

Another interesting thing about the anogeni is that they hold the memories of their ancestors, are born with them in fact.  As a result, they have a complex system of prophecies based on these memories and the patterns they have seen in them.  These prophecies and the anoashki guide them.

The dwergen, similarly, have no structured religion.  Dwergesakhi still lives in the heart of the earth, still speaks to them, and they know him well.  A self-evident god requires no faith.  Dwergesakhi is their creator, though, and as such they offer him respect and will do his bidding unquestioningly, as any good children might.

The eleph, being from Elphindar, are a little different.  Elphindar has no gods, but the eleph still revere the kaides esse, or the powers that be.  They believe in a kind of clock-maker, something beyond their understanding that created the universe, but then left the experiment to tick itself out in the fullness of time.  Like the Hussar, they have an ethical code by which they live.

When the eleph first arrived to Tellurin, Auremon came to them to try to make amends.  They were startled that the kaides esse of this new world took corporeal form and that they intervened in the affairs of mortals.  Since he confessed his role in their eviction from Elphindar and his inability to restore them, the eleph had no use for Auremon, and rebuffed him.

Not long afterward, the eleph encountered Yllel, when the mad god attempted to enslave them.  Yllel could not trick them, however, and this encounter only served to entrench the eleph enmity of the Tellurin gods and the people who worshiped them.

Finally, the favrard espoused an intricate system of ritual and discipline that did not focus on one god, but on all of them, past and present, known and unknown.  When Yllel enslaved them, he made them abandon their spirituality.  Some attempt to cling to their past, but Yllel punishes them for it.  The favrard are Yllel’s special pets, and one of the few peoples that he can possess.  The tortures he can inflict from within are fearsome indeed.

With this, we’re almost at the end of my world-building epic.  Next week, I’ll talk about some of the other distinctive features of Tellurin, some of the cities, keeps, towns, and villages that figure in Initiate of Stone, as well as a few odds and sods.

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about Tellurin and the characters in my novel.

I’m Writerly Goodness, circling three times and settling down for a nice sleep.  Until next week!

Speaking of speaking to the spirits

/ Melanie Marttila
English: Religious symbols from the top nine o...

English: Religious symbols from the top nine organised faiths of the world according to Major world religions From left to right: 1st Row: Christian Cross, Jewish Star of David, Hindu Aumkar 2nd Row: Islamic Star and crescent, Buddhist Wheel of Dharma, Shinto Torii 3rd Row: Sikh Khanda, Bahá’í star, Jain Ahimsa Symbol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A.K.A. Religion and spirituality in Tellurin, part 1

After last week’s lovely vacation from worldbuilding … it’s ba-ack 🙂  If you recall, last instalment, I talked about the specifics of how the magick works.  Part of that dealt with the nature of Ferathainn’s talent: her ability to communicate with the spirits of things.  We’re going to take that metaphor in a different direction this week.

So I’ve already covered the gods, and given a basic rundown of the history of Tellurin.  What’s left to say about the religions?  A fair amount 🙂

The two main religions in Tellurin, The Faithful and The Holy Mother Church are based on Auraya.

Once upon a time, on the eastern coast of Tellurin, the Parimi, Espanic, and the Haldane peoples lived in harmony with the Caldone.  Though all from tribal origins, all but the Caldone had settled into stable, agrarian territories that grew into allied provinces.

The Haldane were great artists and philosophers.  Their main tenet was to live every day to its fullest, to be joyful in the moment, and to follow their bliss.  This led them to strive for excellence in whatever profession they pursued.

The Parimi were of a similar disposition, but they were epicures verging on hedonism (eat, drink, and make love today, for tomorrow, you may die).

The Espanic expressed their philosophy in a different way.  They were great engineers, navigators, and scientists.

All Tellurin knew of the gods, but there was no codified religion yet.

In those days, Auraya, Auremon, and Tryella were active in the affairs of the Tellurin.  Auremon and Tryella weren’t interested in thanks or recognition, however.  Their efforts were altruistic.  Auraya loved the adoration and her partner and daughter were more than happy to let her take credit for their good deeds.

One of the Haldane began to collect tales of divine providence and intervention, and wrote them down.  He signed each story, The Faithful Scribe.  This collection became the Kas’Khoudum, or book of light.

The Parimi took these writings, and developed the set of practices that became The Faithful religion.  Mostly, they gathered at the full and new moons to share tales of wonder, to sing songs about them and to recite poetry based on the tales.  They shared food and drink.  In short, it was a big party that made everyone in attendance happy.  The Haldane and Espanic took to this form of gathering like bees to pollen.

Word of The Faithful gatherings spread beyond the borders of it home provinces and others began to adopt those practices.

The Cadone, however, were still largely a tribal culture.  Though they had cities, these were military strongholds and training centres.  They raided and attacked their neighbours, taking the conquered people as slaves.  When they observed The Faithful gatherings among their slaves, they thought it was pure debauchery and the Kas’Khoudum, a work of heresy.

Their Auraya was a warrior queen, champion of the bold and fearless.  They had established The Holy Mother Church in her name as an administrative branch of their great armies.  They determined that The Faithful had to be stamped out.

Though they drove the Parimi, Haldane, and Espanic peoples from their homelands and pursued them across the continent, Auraya intervened and chose one of The Faithful, Alain de Corvus, to be her Kas’Hadden, or hammer of light.

He saved the refugee peoples, turned back the Caldone, and the Parimi, Haldane, and Espanic settled peacefully on the western coast of Tellurin.

Over time, the religion of The Faithful became ritualized and the practice less joyful.

Yllel, trying to influence The Faithful for his own nefarious purpose created his own book, the Rada’Khoudum, or book of darkness (misleadingly translated as the book against darkness).  This was a book of ceremony and ritual, including a number of spells that when used, would actually bind and drain Auraya’s power, eventually weakening her.

After the Cataclysm, Yllel directed his soul-slaves to place the Rada’Khoudum into the hands of the surviving Faithful.  The Rada’Khoudum became the basis of modern Faithful practice and the Kas’Khoudum became a pleasant book of incredible tales, eventually laying forgotten and gathering dust on a shelf in the Great Library at Aurayene.

It might be helpful to think of The Faithful in the time of Initiate of Stone as analogous to the High Anglican Church in its early days, when multiple sects of Christianity were emerging and religious persecution was rife.

Think of the Holy Mother Church as Christianity in the time of the crusades, except that their collective target is any religion that is not HMC, magi, and any people not Tellurin.  They’ve been waiting and planning for years to execute their holy war.

Next week: The other religions of Tellurin.  You didn’t think I’d stop with two, did you?

Have a great long weekend!

Writerly Goodness, signing off.

The endless, stuttering, intermittent draft

/ Melanie Marttila

As promised, I’m taking a break from worldbuilding, itself a fairly endless task, to talk about my most recent draft.

Officially, this is number six (oh gawd, will I ever be finished?) but I’ve actually been through the MS once, and now I’m editing in fits and starts between critiquing and platform-building, and working.

I’m so tired, I feel like I’m sleepwalking.  With my somnabulant history, maybe I am …

I started honing number six in January when I joined my critique group on Author Salon.  The focus, at first, was my profile, which only featured about six pages of my writing, plus a short synopsis, hook line, conflict statement, protagonist, antagonist, and other character sketches, unique world, climax and denouement.

I still haven’t got the hang of it.

In February, AS announced their first Showcase, and I submitted my bits and pieces, only to be advised that my novel was far too long to be considered.  This happened at the same time that my original blog, labbydog, was hacked.

Faced with two fairly substantial pieces of bad news, I was initially paralyzed.  As I cobbled together my online life, I tried to figure out how I was going to compress a 250,000 word novel into 110,000 words (the AS upper limit).  I sat in a stunned boggle for days trying to think of what I could cut without sacrificing the story.

When my mind stopped spinning long enough to have a coherent thought, I realized the solution was simple, and had been staring me in the face the whole time: cut the bloody thing in half, revise, and edit down from there.  It was a far less daunting task that the one I was considering, and eminently doable.

So I cut, and went through the whole thing, tweaking as I went.  My mid-point was actually a little more than half-way through the original MS and even after that first review, I was still at 150,000 words.

In March, I also posted my first 50 pages to the AS critique group.  Well it was supposed to be the first 50 pages, but mine was close to 90.  The feedback I got was great, but meant that I would have to rewrite a fair chunk of my first act.  I started thinking about how I was going to do that.

Then life got a bit crazy.  March 14 would have been my dad’s 71st birthday, followed in quick succession by the anniversary of his death and funeral in April.  I wanted the world to stop at that point, but the crazy continued with some unexpected kudos at work and a new position in May.

At that point, I was just struggling to keep up, treading water and taking big gulps of air while the waves washed over me.  I know I was overwhelmed.  I knew it even then, I just didn’t have the time to feel it.  I didn’t work on my novel for the entire month of May.

Since then, I’ve conquered the rewrite, revised 30 pages out of the first part of Initiate of Stone, and just recently returned to the critiquing world.

So I haven’t finished this strange draft yet.  I have to work through the three remaining parts of the novel and cut the words/pages to the point where IoS is a streamlined machine, within the AS word limits, and hopefully suitable for a future AS Showcase.

I also have to revise my profile (again) to try and reflect the unique angle my novel presents.  This is a challenge, because IoS is a straight up, traditional fantasy.

What this process has taught me so far:

  • Life continues to happen while you’re making other plans.  It doesn’t stop because you want or even need it to.  The good and the bad crop up at the most inconvenient times and you just have to deal, take care of yourself, and stop worrying about what everyone else thinks.
  • Balance is the thing.  Time and project management skills come to the fore when you’re under stress.  Do what you can and don’t feel guilty.  It is enough.  You are enough.  All will be well.
  • Don’t stop writing.  Even though I wasn’t working on my novel, I was still writing, critiquing, and blogging.  Return to the words every day, and they will reward you every time.
  • Have a plan, or, if the plan you have isn’t working, change it up.  You can be the most meticulously organized person in the world, and something will always happen that sets everything awry.  It’s not a failure unless you quit.  Sometimes you just have to angle into the wind a bit more to keep sailing in a straight line 🙂
  • Write what you want to write, but then you have to find a way to make the concept of your novel interesting to an agent or publisher.  I’m still working on this one.

Will let you know how it goes.

A wee side note here: I’ve started using the super-cool journal my friend Margaret gave me for Christmas.  Embossed leather cover with a nifty semi-precious stone embedded in the leather, home-made, recycled paper laced into the cover.  I even have a refill that I can lace in when I’ve used up all of these pages.

Isn’t it just the coolest writer-gift ever?  I think so.

How is your creative project going?

How the magick works

/ Melanie Marttila

Last time on Work in progress: I told you how I came up with my idea for Tellurin’s magic system, and the dark history of the craft.

But how does it work, you ask?  We all have Robert Heinlein to thank for that.

Ever read Stranger in a Strange Land?  Excellent, then you’ll know what I mean when I say “grok.”  You might even grok it 🙂

Grokking was what Martians did.  They raised Valentine Michael Smith and taught him how to do it.  When Val eventually came to earth, he started to teach humans how to do it too.

Grokking, is not just understanding a thing, it is understanding it in every way possible, through all the senses, emotionally, intellectually, physically, and sub-atomically.  Val could grok something so completely, it would cease to exist, having achieved its greatest purpose in having been so completely understood.  Yes, extreme grokking means understanding something into non-existence.

It’s not exactly the same thing, but sourcery and magick work in a similar way.  Sourcerors manipulate a thing by understanding its nature.  They understand a thing in its molecular structure, by its DNA, though they don’t call it that, and perhaps even to its atomic structure, but no further, and this understanding works on an instinctual basis.  No sourceror ever thinks in terms of modern science.  It’s just not a part of their vocabulary.

As I wrote in last week’s post, the source is a special kind of energy, but it’s still energy, and everything in Tellurin possesses its share.

Those born with a talent are also born with the innate understanding of how to use that talent.  The Agrothe magi have attempted to subvert those talents to their own ends.  They delay the expression of latent talents through their arduous initiation process and indoctrinate their students into thinking that their powers must somehow be “unlocked.”  If left to their own devices, anyone with talent could figure out how to use it on their own.  The Agrothe just want to ensure that the talent develops in an ethical framework.  Theirs.

Georges Merle’s The Sorceress.

As a child, the first creatures Ferathainn understood were the spirits of things: grass, flowers, rocks and trees all “talked” to her.  Because of this talent, Ferathainn understands the spirits of things well enough to evoke their qualities.  She can summon them too, though Aeldred hasn’t explained that what she’s doing is summoning.  He doesn’t want her to run amok.

With people, this understanding takes the form of being able to use thought speech.  Though she does not know it, Ferathainn can also read minds and project her thoughts into the minds of others.  Aeldred, not being a skilled mind-mage, has discouraged this avenue of Ferathainn’s development to the best of his ability.

Ferathainn’s understanding of spirits is also what makes it possible for her to excel at spirit travel.

Ultimately, her understanding of spirits will enable Ferathainn to master all of the elemental powers and talents, beginning with the earth, geomancy.  Hence, Initiate of Stone.

A note on source theft, farming, or poaching

As I mentioned last week, a person’s share of source is attached to their spirit or soul.  It’s part of what makes each person what he or she is.  Because of this, the soul and source may be called at the moment of death and taken by another sourceror.  This is usually accomplished by calling the source by its name, which for most people, is their everyday name.

Clever sourcerors have adopted source names, but these can easily be discovered by an adept mind-mage and so are no guarantee of protection.

In taking another person’s source, the sourceror risks taking not only the victim’s power, but also their personality and memories.  This can lead to insanity unless the sourceror can figure out a way to filter out the undesirable bits of the victim.

Waterhouse’s The Sorceress.

So … everything Ferathainn does is magic 🙂

Next week: a worldbuilding vacation.  I’m going to write about my most recent draft of IoS and what it’s taught me.  Stay tuned.

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Mage or magus, magi or mages?

/ Melanie Marttila

Last time on work in progress: The dull detailing of days, weeks, months, and years in Tellurin.

As promised, here is my theory of magic in Tellurin.  It actually starts about thirty years ago with me in confirmation class …

You may think confirmation a strange place for this, but I started theorizing things that had nothing to do with Christianity.  And you know what?  I was indulged, even encouraged by my instructors, two wonderful, open-minded people.  Shout of gratitude going out to Rick Shore and Marg Flath!  For them, it was healthy to question, explore the questions, and come to your own conclusions.

One of the things I theorized about was the nature of energy, consciousness, the soul, what might be termed miracles, and what might happen after we die … to me it was all connected.

In science (incidentally one of my confirmation instructors was also my grade 9 and 10 science teacher) we were learning that matter and energy were the same thing.  We learned about the laws of thermodynamics, including: energy can never be created or destroyed, but only changes form.

So to me, it wasn’t that far a leap to think that if we, humans, were made of matter (therefore energy) that thought, the soul, and all the wonderful things that made each of us uniquely ourselves was a kind of energy.  It couldn’t be destroyed when we died, it could only change forms.

So how does this relate to Tellurin magic?  Well really this species of thought contributed to both the magic and religious systems of my world, but here’s what I drew from my theorizing about magic: it could exist, just like any other kind of energy.  It would all be a matter of trial and error to figure it out.  It would be a kind of scientific experiment …

You may remember from my post about the cosmology of Tellurin that my interpretation of the big bang was that something within the homogeneous whatever that existed before the universe (I called it the One) recognized its independence.  In that moment, everything else within the One had to become distinct.  Boom!

But in my universe, not all kinds of energy are distributed equally.  The thing that recognized its independence (what became Auraya) carried more than its fair share of a specific kind of energy, and Tellurin, the planet, bore an equivalent amount.  That’s why the world has its own spirit and consciousness.

So Tellurin is a magic-rich world, and potentially any of the beings living on or in Tellurin can access that energy if they have the talent.  Talents are another group of senses that allow their possessors to recognise source and influence or manipulate it in specific ways.

Aside from Auraya, Tellurin, and the other gods of the world, everything holds its own share of the source of all things, or, simply the source.  In the people of Tellurin, this energy is bound to the spirit or soul.  It’s part of what makes them what they are.

When the primitive Tellurin first discovered their talents and their ability to manipulate the source, they called themselves sourcerors.  They learned in communities, experimenting with their various talents and expressions of source, categorizing and naming them as they went.

Along came a man named Halthyon Morrhynd.  He was actually an eleph from Elphindar, crossed over into Tellurin through one of the Ways Between the Worlds.  Incidentally, these Ways are just another expression of the source in Tellurin, a natural phenomenon.   If worm-holes could exist and function in a stable manner without affecting the matter and energy around them, that’s what the Ways would be.

Halthyon, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, is a bit of a megalomaniac.  In Elphindar, he’d tried to stage a coup against the anathas, or council of elders, and institute a kind of magocracy.  The eleph called source in their world the kaides esse, or the powers that be.  Sourcerors were called kaidin.

The result of Halthyon’s attempt to wrest power from the anathas was that he failed and was ostracized, or made shuriah.  The eleph were the only people in Elphindar.  Ostracism was generally a death-sentence.  Elphindar has no gods either, only the kaides esse, and those in significantly lower amounts than source in Tellurin.

Elphindar would not satisfy Halthyon’s ambitions, but once he found the Way and made it through to Tellurin, Halthyon saw this new world as a paradise.  He instantly made the connection between the source of all things, the kaides esse, and the gods of the new world.  He understood that if he could find a way to contain enough source within him, that he could transcend mortality and become a god himself.

The source existing in the things around him wouldn’t do.  He’d have to expend nearly as much source in the destruction of inanimate objects as he would receive from said destruction.  The gain would be negligible.  The people though, them he could use.

So he found the fledgling sourcerors of Tellurin and taught them.  In time, they “grew ripe” and he was able to “harvest” them by killing them and stealing the source carried with their souls.  The way to do this, was to call the deceased sourceror by name, and thus summon his soul.

Sourcerors began to take source-names, secret names to prevent Halthyon from learning the name that could call their soul and source to him, but Halthyon was skilled at telepathy, and could discover their secrets.

As he waited for some of them to ripen, other sourcerors grew powerful in their own rights, learned what he was doing to their fellows, and mimicked the practice to accrue their own stores of source.

The brothers Kane and Jareth were two of these surprising sourcerors.  Kane was as obsessed with gaining power as Halthyon, but he was also concerned that Halthyon would murder him before he could get very far, so he started to develop defences, the chief of them being binding.

His early experiments were with animals.  He bound his soul and source to a creature, and if he was killed, so the theory went, his soul and source would remain safe in the beast.  These he called familiars.  Kane was a good scientist, and decided to test his theory after sharing it with some of his fellow sourcerors.

Unfortunately, the consciousness of the animal interfered with that of the bound sourceror, and the animal hadn’t the capacity to use source, and so quickly fell prey to the predatory sourceror.

His next experiments involved people who had no noticeable talent.  These he referred to as homunculi.  Sadly the same thing happened with them as did with the animals, and these too, he discarded as a failed experiment.

Then he started playing with constructs, which he called golems.  These experiments were never wholly successful.

In the meantime, Kane’s brother Jareth, whose primary talent was geomancy, or manipulating the earth element, conducted experiments of his own.  He decided that inanimate objects would make better subjects for binding.  There would be no consciousness to interfere with the bound sourceror’s, but this would necessitate having a partner who would be able to release and restore the sourceror after the death of his or her body.

Jareth’s experiment was much more successful than Kane’s and was widely adopted, even by Kane himself, but no solution was perfect.

Sourcerors like Halthyon and Kane, after killing another sourceror, would search out the partner, and torture them until they revealed the secret of unbinding their victim.  If the partner was stubborn enough, or faithful enough, to keep the secret, then they could simply be killed.  Although the murderer would never benefit from the source of their victims this way, their victim would forever remain trapped in whatever object they’d bound themselves to.

This is eventually what happened to Jareth.  Halthyon slew him in sourcerous combat and went in search of his partner.  Kane got to her first.  Laleina was not only Jareth’s binding partner, but they were also lovers, a relationship that Kane always envied.

Laleina wasn’t cooperative and would not divulge Jareth’s secrets.  Kane knew, to his regret, that he could not keep her alive.  Halthyon would eventually come calling and Kane wasn’t ready to face the eleph.  In a twisted bit of experimentation, Kane bound Laleina’s soul and source to one of his failed golems.  He’d noticed that metal tended to dampen the effect of source.

And so Laleina was trapped in the thing that would eventually become the Machine.

The sourcerous world continued along the same violent lines for centuries, but Auremon eventually decided that he couldn’t let things go on this way.

His idea was to voluntarily surrender his godhood, and his god’s share of source, to Tellurin, hoping that more source in the world would allow Tellurin to even the playing field among the sourcerors, and keep the power-hungry ones from victimizing the rest.

It didn’t work out as well as he thought.  Too close to one of the Ways Between the Worlds, he tore it open and half the population of Elphindar was sucked into Tellurin before the Way could be repaired by Auraya.  The sourcerors didn’t behave any differently, and Auremon had to concede his failure.

The only thing he could think to do, was to teach young sourcerors how to use their powers responsibly.  So he set himself up as a sage in a mountainous island off the western coast of the main continent.  Auraya created a great castle for him there, and eventually all sourcerors found their way to Auremsart.

Auremon taught ethics more than anything else.  It was the sourcerors themselves who thought that if they changed the names of things, that they could change the way people behaved more effectively.  So source became magick, sourcerors became magi, and they instituted a rigorous initiation process that would so instil Auremon’s ethical code into their students that there would be no risk of any of them becoming monsters.  They called their new discipline Agrothe, the followers of the code, in the old language of the land.

They policed themselves too, and started setting up schools of magick in other cities.  Business was booming.  And then Yllel came in disguise and killed his father.  Auremsart crumbled, became the Spire, and two kindly elementals from Elphindar resurrected Auremon and bound his spirit to the stone that was all that remained of his earthly home.

How the Agrothe functions in Tellurin at the time of the novel:

  • As soon as the prospect’s talent begins to manifest, training begins.  This can be anywhere between five and thirteen suns of age.  The prospect becomes an aspirant.
  • This period is one of intense theoretical and ethical training, highly structured, lasting thirteen suns. This phase of training does not guarantee initiation.  If evidence of cruelty or insanity is detected by the Master, the aspirant is taken to a mind-mage, and their talent crippled.
  • The aspirant is initiated.  This phase of the training introduces the initiate to their talent(s) in a gradual, disciplined fashion, and also lasts thirteen suns.
  • The initiate is apprenticed, gains some autonomy and is allowed to experiment in a limited fashion.
  • After thirteen more years, the apprentice could become a master in his or her own right.  If further training is deemed necessary, an interim period of guided practice could be instituted.  The mage operated independently, but under the watchful eye of their master.  This period could also last thirteen suns.
  • At any time, if the student decides, they can withdraw from training, once more having their talent crippled so that it cannot be used in an unauthorized or unethical fashion.
  • This is why most women, wanting a family and life outside of the Agrothe, never make it to initiation.

Aeldred sensed Ferathainn’s potential at the eleph ceremony of Shir’Authe, when she was only a day old and newly abandoned in Hartsgrove.  Her talent was prodigious and he began her training when she was four suns old.

Most aspirants only evidence one or two talents, the rest developing with age and experience.  Most full-fledged magi might have five talents at their disposal, but it will be the one or two that showed themselves first that will be the mage’s primary talents.

Ferathainn possesses aliopathy, or the ability to speak to the spirits of things, which in turn feeds into her talent at evocation and summoning.  She is uncommonly talented in mind magick, able to communicate through thought speech with those who do not share the talent, and can travel in spirit with ease.

Aspirants are not allowed to use their talents prior to initiation, but Aeldred does not want to lose Ferathainn as a student, so he allows the girl latitude.  Besides, mind-magick is not one of his stronger talents, and he cannot prevent her from doing what comes naturally to her.

He does not want to call one of his Agrothe brothers in for fear that Fer will be taken away from him.  Further, he fears reprimand for his unorthodox training methods.  For similar reasons, he has not prevented Ferathainn from becoming betrothed or married.  He feels that if anyone can balance a life of magick and domesticity, it will be Ferathiann.

He hasn’t explained much of this to Ferathainn.  He hasn’t even explained her talents to her.  In truth, he’s a little afraid of what she might become, and that his lenience may lead her to the forbidden ways of sourcery.

She will be the first Agrotha initiated in two hundred suns.  That’s too great a prize for Aeldred to resist.

Next week: Everything little thing she does is magick!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Overview of the geo-political history of Tellurin, part 2

/ Melanie Marttila

Last time on Work in progress: The first Kas’Hadden saves the Parimi.

The Parimi now occupied the western coastal mountain region of the continent but they were happy.  Having brought with them the best and brightest of their people, they took root and created a province like no other.

The Haldani and Espanic peoples, also persecuted by the Caldone, settled on the western coast as well, but in smaller settlements, though, these two, became provinces in their own rights. The Haldani and Espanic espoused the Faithful religion.

The Parimi continued in their spiritual belief as well, and when the Caldone finally realized that they could no more eradicate the Parimi Faithful than they could the Haldani and Espanic survivors, they relented and struck a balance.  The Holy Mother Church established its own religious centre and their own archbishop in Impiranze, Caldone’s capitol city on the eastern coast. Still, it was the holy city of Aurayene and the Archbishop there that became the spiritual centre of the continent.

Each area and culture within Tellurin developed its own language and way of life.  Each developed its own economy and its own ruler.  Whether king or osire or emperor, Tigernos, Chieftain, or Horselord, each country had its own leader and its own soldiers.  They fought with each other to a greater or lesser extent.  Those displaced or exiled due to the fighting inevitably found themselves trickling through the mountain passes and establishing towns and villages and small city forts on the western side of the continent.

Each had its own sourcerors, though they may have been called witch doctors, shaman, druids, spirit walkers, or other things.  Tellurin developed and grew.  Its people developed and grew as well.

Eventually, they negotiated truces and trade routes.  Aurayene in the west and Drychtensart in the east became the two largest cities and began to amalgamate power (religious and political respectively) in those two centres.

Auremon’s mistake brought the eleph into Tellurin.  Their bitterness at being “trapped” in Tellurin caused them to turn every help away: Auremon, and delegations from Aurayene (the Parimi), Mersea (the Espanic), and Pax (the Haldani).  Their desire for isolation and distrust of outsiders was spread far and wide and the people of Tellurin decided to let the eleph live as they chose (so long as they didn’t cause trouble).

The Agrothe was established and its adherents prospered.  Soon nearly all developing persons of talent were sent to Auremsart off the western coast to be trained in the official art of magick.

The Saxon began to assert themselves as the new power in Tellurin.  Politically, things were moving slowly but inexorably toward a centralized government and high king in Drychtensart.

When Auremon was killed and Auremsart crumbled into the sea, the Agrothe magi on the mainland consolidated in Dychtensart, another coup for the increasingly powerful king.  King Druckert (later called the wise) established the King’s University in Drychtensart and the Agrothe disciplines survived there.

Then the Cataclysm happened.  This was the battle between Auraya, Tryella, and Yllel.  As described in a previous post, the world was shaken by natural disaster in every form.  Vedranya in its new and terrible incarnation came to be.  Millions of people died.  Much of the written history and accumulated knowledge of the previous centuries was lost or destroyed.

In the years following the Cataclysm, the world rebuilt.  The Saxon, the strongest nation before the Cataclysm, was the first to recover afterward.  The king in Drychtensart was the de facto king of all Tellurin, though there were kings and lords scattered throughout the lands.

The gods were silent and though the religion of Auraya still existed, in both its liberal (Aurayene) and fundamental (Impiranze) sects, it was a changed religion.  The Kas’Khoudum and the Rada’Khoudum had both been miraculously saved, but much of the scholarship on the ancient texts was lost and many of the elder scholars had not survived the Cataclysm.

New schools and scholars made it the work of their lives to try to find old texts and recover their knowledge.  They spoke to the oldest of the old, the wisest of the elders.  But there were pieces missing and there was no context for the pieces of history that were recovered in later years.

Some ambitious scholars tried to recreate history as they thought it should have occurred.  A new speculative branch of scholarship arose.  Many of them were simple fabulists and their fictions were transparent.  Others were more convincing and only served to confuse things further.

The Agrothe had also survived more or less intact, but they too had been changed by the Cataclysm.  In the same way as history was being reinvented, the Agrothe too experienced a queer kind of renaissance.  The knowledge of the sourcerors that they had so long tried to subsume with their own training and lore was now actively set aside and with the trauma of the Cataclysm so recent, it was a much easier thing to forget about the sourcerors than to try to deal with them.

As for the sourcerors themselves, they survived, but found it far easier to do so without the constant harassment of the Agrothe.  They were happy to be forgotten, and yet, new sourcerors continued to be found, quietly whisked away for training, and then set loose on an unsuspecting world.

At the opening of the novel, the political world is ruled by King Romnir Raethe in Drychtensart, High King in all but name.  Each of the other countries still have their own ruler, but most of these (Nubia, Caldone, Hussar, and the Island Kingdoms) sit on a council that advises King Raethe.  The Parimi are represented by Archbishop Hermann Manse, special advisor to the king.

The Caldone archbishop does not advise.  The Sami and Skaldic rulers sit on the council when they choose to go to Drychtensart, which is rarely.  The Saxon are represented only by King Raethe.

The Shooksa-Nai and the Saanzu never had representatives on the council, though trade envoys appear from time to time.  The eleph of Rosingthiel keep to themselves and by and large, most people are happy with that arrangement.

The dwergen and dwergini likewise have their own self-sufficient kingdom beneath the earth, their own king, and trade envoys. The deep-dwellers are more regular in their attentions, however, and visit Drychtensart twice each sun, once in Shoudranya and once again in Mardranya to trade raw ore and enchanted weapons and armour.

The favrard live scattered throughout Tellurin (though some remain on Tahesakhi), serving their dark lord.

The western lands, bordered by the mountains in the east, the Deep Forest in the south, Parime, Haldane, and Espania on the western coast, and The Wilds in the north, are largely independent settlements and free towns that owe fealty to Drychtensart, but pay annual tributes to the surrounding lords and provinces to ensure their safety.

The king doesn’t bother to enforce this fealty, however, with the exception of the mountain keeps, which were Saxon to begin with, and Gryphonskeep, the sole settlement with ties to the Island Kingdoms in western Tellurin.

The Caldone are secretly plotting to eradicate the Faithful and supplant Archbishop Manse with their own archbishop as the religious leader of Tellurin.  They are also plotting to take the throne from Raethe.  With both religious and scular power secured, they want to cleanse the known world of such blights as magi and eleph, really anyone who doesn’t adhere to the Holy Mother Church.

Everything else is being set in motion by Yllel and Kane.  Yllel directs the drogadi to place source bombs strategically throughout the dwergen empire.  Drogadi sourcerors detonate the bombs remotely and trap the dwergen in their own kingdom.

His people among the Faithful place the Rada’Khoudum firmly in the hands of Archbishop Manse so that he uses its spells to bind Auraya’s source to kill Callum, the rising Kas’Hadden.

The drogadi rise to the surface and foment chaos in the west.  The other enslaved races muster for the coming battle.

The okante, and otherwise peaceful, tribal people, usually live in harmony with the Shooksa-Nai in the Northern Steppes and in the southern part of the wilds, south of the Glass Sea.  The krean are sea-faring folk who still call Tahesakhi home for the most part.  The bakath live in the Southron Spine, and the grunden in the Northron Spine.  The blinsies harass the Saanzu in the Deep Forest, but steer clear of the eleph.

Kane’s sourcerors infiltrate the Agrothe into the very capital and the king’s own university.

Map of Tellurin

Map of Tellurin

This is my cartographically-challenged map of Tellurin. At least you’ll get the general lay of the land.

Next week: What’s a Tellurin year?  A month? The days of the week?  The seasons?  Calendrical mysteries revealed.  This stuff will likely never appear in the novel, so Writerly Goodness will be your only chance to see such arcane material 🙂

Until then, good luck and good writing.