30 days hath Smith Bellows …

I probably should have known that this weekend was going to be troublesome getting a post up because of holiday and all the preparation I had to help with in advance of our family gathering. Throw in a longer-than-normal Sunday at work and the third episode of Game of Thrones, and I felt lucky getting half of this written before today.

A likely excuse …

However, this week I wanted to overview the months of the Kalanesian calendar and the major holidays that occur in them. It seemed like a good idea for the Easter Holiday.

I’ve got half of the year line out below, and, Friday or Saturday, I’ll have the last six months.

High Winter aka Midnight’s Vigil

• Patron: Halath, the Watcher in Darkness
• Named for Halath’s watchful nature during the night.
• 31 days long, late December/early January corollary
• Long Watch: Originally started as a ritual of Halath’s clergy and paladins to stay up 48 on the winter solstice. Still, Halath’s followers hold their long watch as a ritual to cleanse their minds of egocentrism.
• Revess: A sacred day for the wild elves that also falls on day of and after the winter solstice. They believe the sun spirit dies at sunset, his dead body smoldering during twilight. Then, at dawn, he rises up a new child. The day of the solstice is a very somber affair, many elves putting on ritual mourning garments, but, at dawn, they spend the rest of the day hosting a boisterous feast.

Late Winter aka Smith’s Bellows

• Patron: Cador, the Flame of Genius
• Named for the smiths beginning to repair and forge new plows for farmers
• 30 days long, late January/early February corollary
• Rekindling: When all fires are extinguished and restarted on the first day of the month. Rekindling is a fairly simple custom, more than a holiday for most families, but churches dedicated to Cador after host elaborate ceremonies complete with poetry, songs and dedications of artwork. It is meant to signify a commitment to innovation rather than stagnation.

Early Spring aka Blade’s Edge

• Patron: The Parable of Blades
• Named for preparation for war made when weather permits it.
• 31 days long, later February/early March corollay
• Barrack’s Day: A soldiers’ celebration on the seventh day. Typically, this day, primarily for warriors, starts with a quick morning devotion to the nine holy swords before the rest of the day is spent drinking, feasting and … enjoying the other fruits of shore leave, either at the local brothels or with wives and mistresses.
• Melting Day: Celebrates the first day when snow melts enough for dwarves to come to the surface. After winter snows melt enough that dwarves can more easily use their mountain entrances and paths to access the surface races, they host a boisterous festival in the sun.

High Spring aka Mother’s Promise

• Patron: Ineria, the Good Godess
• Named for the fertile potential of woman
• 30 days long, late march/early April corollary
• The Ineritalia: A celebration of spring and renewal on the vernal equinox, the start of the Blue Empire’s new year. After the long winter and initial preparations for planting are over, clerics of Ineria host a week-long festival dedicated to the goddess of agriculture to bless the coming harvest. It features food, drink, actors, singers, poets, and any number of boisterous activity.
• Spirits’ Dance: A day of connection to the land among the primitive peoples who worship the Primal Spirits also falling on the vernal equinox. These peoples believe that the spirits of the land are most active on this day — particularly the beneficent spirits. Similar to the Ineritalia, feasts are held, and they put on masks of the spirits.

Late Spring aka Hooves’ Dust

• Patron: Nemerium, the Father of Pegasi
• Named for improved travel conditions
• 31 days long, late April/early May corollary
• Mucking Day: A holiday, on the ninth day, when the royal stables and others throughout the land are cleaned and all the barding and tack polished. Though associated with cleaning out the stables, this holiday is when the peasants lay out manure to dry for the winter and place some on fields as fertilizer.
• The Great Circus: Two days of races following up Mucking Day starting the next day. In an annual test of the breeding of horses and pegasi, this festival plays host two major races one for each mount. The traditional course generally takes place through the streets of Waystran, but, since the fall of the empire, similar races are held in each city, though the most prestigious still exists in the formal imperial capital.

Early Summer aka Coin’s Gleam

• Patron: The Church of Talent
• Named for the first profits made in the trading season by merchants
• 30 days long, late May/early June corollary
• Sarenthalash: An elven day marking their rebellion against the fey courts and the start of a month of fasting. Aside from a small meal, traditionally of dried meat and fruits in the evening, the elves abstain from eating as a memorial of their fight against the fey courts. Unlike most other elven celebrations, there is little levity in the ceremonies.
• The Caravanserai: A grandiose merchants fair held at each Church of Talent complex, starting on the eleventh day and running through the twentieth day. Typically, this is the most elaborate festival held in the former Blue Empire because of its extravagance and availability of goods. It is also when merchants show off new wares available and make numerous deals.
• Nikerielas: A feast breaking the Sarenthalas fast on the thirtieth day of the month. Elven communities gather for this solemn feast commemorating all of the lives, both elvar and eldarine, that were lost during the final battle when the elves stepped through the portal into the mortal world from the Fey Lands.

Symbolism is everything

This week, I thought I’d share some of the holy symbols I’ve bee trying to draw up a basic visual key for myself.

Now, this doesn’t have much in the way of writing or new story stuff — though it has a few hints at what’s to come, such as two symbols and epithets for Verisérin and a new, fiery deity, Cador. I’ll leave you all to ruminate on that.

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Winning in November

Well, it’s been a month since the last post on here while I worked day and night on my National Novel Writing Month entry, and it all paid off with an official word count of 50,214 on the last day of the month.

Now, my plans to post quick snippets on here and tweet excerpts as I worked fell to the wayside as time constraints reared their ugly heads.

But that doesn’t mean I have learned a lot of really cool things about Kalanesia through the process.

I already posted a neat bit of trivia about elves: those raised in normal circumstances bear tattoos that indicate certain things about them, such as occupation, family, etc. I think it is a really cool way to differentiate them from other elves — both from other worlds and in Kalanesia. Aside from this, I’ve got enough new material lined out for another couple of posts on elven culture. So keep an eye out in the next month or two.

Otherwise, I’ll start with the first major component that has developed out of writing the novel: I’m going to do my best to disengage the setting from being solely for Dungeons and Dragons and provide material that could easily transmit to any roleplaying system.

• Wee Jas will need to be renamed. What that name will be I am unsure.
• Remember when I said the demon lords would remain like D&D? Well, they’ll be retooled, as well.
• Names of places like the Feywild and Shadowfell will also be reworked. The new name of the Feywild will be the Feylands, and the Shadowfell is now the Grey Wastes; I’ll explain more on this in the future.

But, here are some of the other trivia bits of info that came out of writing the novel.

• Priests of Boudica give up their original names and take on new identities under their goddess.
• While the city of Exeline is not on the coast of an ocean, it was built around a waterfall and a lake, which empties into a river than runs to Waystrand. As such, there is river-based trade using barges that flow between the cities.
• Most of the Church of Halath’s rites and rituals take place at night, when their vigilance is most needed.
• Changelings are a hated race because many believe they always lie.
• There are some areas in Kalanesia were slavery exists, and in areas where it is outlawed, slavers still manage to pop up offering their living wares. This isn’t touched on yet, but Sargesia, the main city of teiflings is a major hub.
• Those who worship the Seven Sisters use “Sisters’ knees” as an swear, base off of the “Sisters’ knobbly knees,” a send up of stereotypical images of Halloween witches. While no others popped up, I don’t see why this can extend to other things such as “a wart on my nose,” to reference an annoyance.
• Ever wondered why demons and angels seldom appear in the mortal world and abjuration magic banishes them? It’s because they aren’t native to the mortal world and have no direct connection to it, which can only be forged by someone in the world via a ritual or the expenditure of amazing amounts of energy. So what does this mean for extra-planar travel? You’ll have to wait and see.

As to the finished novel, well, it isn’t finished. I’m planning on leaving it along for a month and, at the start of 2014, picking it back up to start editing. Since this has mostly been a fun experience, I’m not sure yet if this is something I’m going to send out for publication submission. It will largely depend on how the editing process goes.

So cheers ’til next week, folks.

Of demons and men, part i

Back when I first started this blog, I said that I wanted to introduce a new race with Kalanesia that was tied to the Bloodrift War, a race that was tainted by demonic energy that the Bloodrift Warlock created to serve as the fodder in his armies.

In the original post, I toyed with the idea of calling them viridemons, and I think this still fits. For those who have studied Latin might notice the prefix added to the racial name comes from “vir,” one of the words for “man.”

However, my greatest issue was coming up with the concept. In my head, I kept using the running name Demonborn, and, unfortunately, that name came from the notion that the race came about as a breeding project by the Bloodrift Warlock, sort of like applying the Half-Fiend or Half-Celestial template to a human or other race.

I’m sexy, and I know it.

But, in the long term, this presented more problems than it fixed.

Firstly, besides the yuck factor, it would make sense that the Warlock would have used various demons to create different versions of the race, which would have made for a nightmare creating a version for those with marilith, balor, vrock, etc. I thought maybe an optional ability with the race that would allow the player to flavor the PC, like a jump bonus for vrock-blooded PCs with feats that eventually allow flight, or reflex bonus to marilith-blooded members with feats that eventually produce extra arms.

This would have been too complex and didn’t feel right.

Then, looking at those above templates as inspiration would have made creatures too powerful for a standard race, especially if you look at one of the few half-demons presented in DnD lore: the Draegloth.

The Draegloth was super powerful, almost a match for the most iconic and powerful Drizzt Do’Urden. Super strong, fast and intelligent, they are as much creatures of instinct as ration, requiring the hand of the Priests of Lolth to control them. Basically a huge, malicious toddler with claws.

Mommy, can I eat … I mean keep him?

Plus, even if you sped up pregnancy and growth rates of the young half-demons, that would still take time, allowing the rest of the world an option to take him out before his plans were complete — kind of like when Europe had the chance to stop Hitler when he first invaded Poland before WWII broke out.

Ultimately, this method was flawed beyond fixing, so I did some more research to find a suitable plan. And lo and behold, it was right there in the “Demonic Ascension” section of the 4E Demonomicon, cacodemons:

When a particularly powerful demon perishes, its soul might persist for a time as a cacodemon. Like souls that walk the Shadowfell waiting for their final fate, a cacodemon exists for a length oftime proportional to the demon’s power in life. Unlike a Shadowfell soul, a cacodemon can end its wandering by possessing a body or an object …

The risk involved in possessing a soulless body — particularly a nondemon body — is that while the cacodemon animus retains its personality and experiences, it is only as physically powerful as the body it possesses. Unlike possessing an object (see below), once a cacodemon possesses a soulless body, it is bound within it until that body is destroyed. Moreover, if a demon possessing a body is slain, it has no guarantee that its animus will become a cacodemon again. (11)

Now this had some teeth — potentially literal teeth.

It makes sense that, rather than spend the time and possibly be caught, the Warlock could more easily summon and slaughter numerous powerful demons, produce numerous cacodemons, and infuse them into unsuspecting humans after a large, initial battle.

Enter the fate of Nothren.

After the Bloodrift Warlock’s initial work to create a plethora of cacodemons, he attacked the largest northern city of the Blue Empire. The initial wave of lesser demons were meant to scare the populace into the center of the town. Nothren was a bastion of Halath, the Watcher in the Night, built around a grand cathedral built as a bastion to resist sieges. However, that defense became the Bloodrift Warlock’s greatest tool.

Once the populace had retreated to the cathedral, the Warlock unleashed his ritual, using the demons of his army to fuel the spell. This fused the essence of the cacodemons into the people of Nothren, turning them into viridemons: all the sheer power of demons with the capabilities of mortals.

From there, the newly created viridemon were easily controlled by the Warlock because he offered them a chance to free themselves of their curse.

But, that’s enough for this week. You’ll have to wait for next week to see a more details of the race itself.

Into the Wild, Blue Pantheon

I’m putting putting up this post, mostly,  in preparation for future ones as background. Though it may seem old that the larger percent of my posts on this blog are for deities and pantheons already, this is usually how I form my worlds — after all, most real world cultures are developed around religion.

God made Man. Man made Art:
The Catholic Church patronized numerous artists, like Michelangelo,
to make their buildings look opulent. If you think about it, Art
is God’s grandchild who likes to run around naked.

If you look in my “About” page, you’ll see a reference to the Blue Empire, which held the greatest sway up until the Bloodrift Warlock devatstated the world. Numerous city-states have arisen in its place, and many still follow the customs spread by the empire. That includes the religions that found prominence during the Blue Age, as it has been called — I’ll put up a post of the empire here in the next few weeks.

Now, calling this the Blue Pantheon might be a bit misleading. It is actually a grouping of individual religions that were openly practiced by humans and their descending races during the empire. For the most part, they are not evil religions. Please note that this is not a complete listing.

• The Church of Aza Mathera (Lawful Good): Definitely the most predominant of all religions in the Blue Pantheon, Aza Mathera, or the Life-Giving Fountain, was founded in the city Waystrand, the seat of the Blue Empire. There, a large fountain springs from the center of the city. Blue Followers, as its adherents are often called, believe that water is life, and are the predominant healers of numerous religions.
• The Parable of Blades (Neutral): Followed by nearly all who are involved in war or who work with the military or guards, the religion is itself a pantheon derived from artifact weapons believed to be wielded by gods and to have inherited their divinity. Some of the blades are evil in nature, but they are viewed a section of a whole. Though good-aligned practitioners butt heads with evil-practitioners — the same with lawful versus chaotic — they do cooperate much like the Wizards of High Sorcery in Dragonlance. They include the following:
  • Lawgiver (Lawful Good): Represented by a broadsword, this blade represents order.
  • Shield (Neutral Good): Represented by a bastard sword, the blade represents protection.
  • Radiance (Chaotic Good): Represented by a scimitar, this blade represents passion.
  • Axiom (Lawful Neutral): Represented by a great sword, this blade represents justice.
  • Requiem (Neutral): Represented by a short sword, this blade represents grief and sorrow.
  • Willful (Chaotic Neutral): Represented by a kukri, the blade represents freeedom.
  • Irontooth (Lawful Evil): Represented by a longsword, the blade represents control.
  • Pierce (Neutral Evil): Represented by a dagger, the blade represents trickery.
  • Fury (Chaotic Evil): Represented by a khopesh, the blade represents anger.
• Halath, the Watcher in Darkness (Lawful Good): You might remember him from here.
• The Lover (Neutral): See this post.
• Ineria, the Good Goddess (Neutral Good): Ineria is a quintessential earth and fertility goddess, though she is fickle.
• Mora Ori (Lawful Neutral): If you remember, I mentioned I was going to switch up the goddess presented here. As part of the Blue Pantheon, she is more a goddess of fate, time and death whose worship originated in the marshy areas of Kalanesia.
• Verisérin (Neutral): Also called the Lorekeeper, Verisérin is a god of learning, magic, invention and science.
• The Church of Talent (Lawful Neutral): This religion sprung from, some believe, a deity whose image was printed on some of the first coins. From there,  the deity’s name was lost to the annals of history, but his likeness was transferred to the Blue Empire’s coinage, and he adopted the name Talent, an archaic form of measurement. This deity governs trade, travel, art and guilds.
• The Veiled Maiden (Neutral Good): This goddess governs charity, forgiveness and protection.
• Orisana (Chaotic Neutral): From the same post as Mora Ori, Orisana has been promoted from to having her own church in the Blue Empire. Much like her original incarnation, she supposedly taught humanity to weave nets and sail, and she is still known as a fickle goddess, probably a more prominent aspect since she will likely replace Pollistrow, the Great Undertow and Iothea, the Coral-Crowned.

Some of you who have read this blog will note that Boudicca and Wee Jas are not listed. That means they were not widely worshiped during the Blue Empire, were considered anti-empire, or evil. I’ll leave you to guess where those two goddesses fall.

Idea Dump #1: A Deity for Humanity, a Watcher in the Night

Okay, let me preface this first post by saying this will be one of at least two or three posts that will be coming out between today and tomorrow.  Hurray for ideas!  Anyway, in the words of David Tennet:

_________________________

I mentioned in my last post that I love mythology and majored in Latin as a result.  One of the things that I also loved about learning the language was understanding Catholic liturgy, a strange thing since I’m actually not Catholic.

I took choir in high school and sang Panis Angelicus for a solo competition, which started a love of that particular musical genre.  Several religions have music as an integral part of worship: Catholic masses, chanted passage of the Qur’an and Torah, old-timey hymnals just to name a few.

Which leads to me to a new deity I’m planning for humanity.  Compared to the Fey pantheon, I rather like the idea that humanity has several unconnected religions, and this particular religions and deity was inspired by by a Hayley Westenra song that I listened to yesterday.  Here is a video:

In particular, the chorus of “Let your arms enfold us/ through the depths of night” gave me a great idea.

The whole 4 E premise is that the world is filled with “points of light” where civilization represents a small portion of the world and the rest is dangerous.  I like that idea, so I know it is something I want to carry over to my world, and in such a world, a deity to offers protection to all could easily be associated with night and darkness, giving worshipers hope that when the sun rises all will be well.

SO presenting Halath, the Watcher in the Night.  Halath is primarily associated with protection and the nighttime.  He teachers his followers that, while the darkness may be filled with dangers, those who are strong of heart and willing to protect others will see the brighter tomorrow.

Another thing I want to include, since each human deity is tied to its own religion, I’m planning to include sects as part of the deities lore, mechanically translating into each deity having a few set domains with one or two other domains available to only one of the sects.

For Halath, I plan to have the following sects:

• The Order of the Full Moon: This sect is more geared towards the hope that Halath can bring.  A group more devoted to aiding those in need, they feed the poor, heal the sick, and provide encouragement.  They are the most proliferate of the sects.
• The Midnight Shields: These worshipers are often found in police or towns-watch organizations.  They believe in a active means to seeing the morning: watching the streets for threatens and responding when necessary.  They are sentries , captains of thee city guards, and gate guardians in smaller hamlet.
• The Long Shadows: This is probably the most obscure and most fanatic of the sects, and is also a schism from the Midnight Shields.  They believe the best way to see the dawn to to take a proactive hand in ridding the dark of the threats that hides there.  They are spies, vigilantes, and when they deem it necessary assassins, taking out those they believe will hinder the approaching dawn.  They are not inherintly evil, nor do they believe they are anything but good, however, they can darker than many other worshipers of Halath might tolerate.

As you can tell, the Long Shadows can be potentially evils, but are not necessarily meant to be.  They just . . . have a different way of expressing their beliefs.  Just like George R. R. Martin’s Melisandre and her god R’hllor.

For the night is dark and full of terrors . . . like psychotic, manipulative, epic-level clerics who indulge in pyromania.