Everything is smaller in Porylus. That is a common expression in Deneroth, generally used to belittle the city, or to keep it in place relative to Deneroth as a "little sibling" in the mythology of post-Haraalian city-states. But it means that everything in Porylus is closer, more familiar. Cozy, dare I say. That is certainly what it feels like, as we ascend the spiral-pathed slope of the central campus.
The various stone buildings to our left and right are practically built on top of one another, rather than having vast yards and imposingly tall fences or walls between them. Dormitories seem to be spaces intermittently amid buildings operated directly by faculty and stuff, each of them identified by small graven signs out front or above the doorway. They almost look naked without an elaborate coat of arms or numerical rank range adorning them. We barely realize what it is when our amicable procession stops us in front of the dual-purpose admissions and visitors office- back in Deneroth, the comparable building at the ITU is a cathedral-shaped edifice which absolutely dominates one of the six gates leading to the campus, where as much ritual is performed to cleanse newcomers of the outside world as paperwork is done to make them feel at home.
I do see one deliberately placed symbol, however. Carved into an arch-shaped plaque above the entrance of the barrel-shaped office in bold, equidistant characters is a line taken from the Hymns of Knowledge-Making, written during the first decade following the death and canonization of Laizij.
"Find within these Walls the Whole of the World."
I hear my fellows repeat it as we approach the threshold, Ciudo even speaking it in the deliberately archaic dialect of the cult, a standard introductory subject for the students of dead and obscure languages at ITU.
The "walls" refer both to the institution of learning, whether Ivory Tower or Porylus in this case, as well as the bones of the human skull. The message indicates that possessed knowledge of anything and everything exists within one's own mind, though the spoken or written word do exist as valued vehicles for it. The brain becomes a sacred vessel meant to be filled to its fullest capacity with knowledge, with the elusive goal of complete knowledge implied, lurking but ever-present.
Within the brazier-lit office, the fitted stone walls and floors are bedecked in thick, decorative textiles of gold, red, and cooler colors. The far side of the one-room building is dominated by a huge series of shelves which hold hundreds of cylindrical wooden containers, each of which containing hundreds of rolls of parchment or more fibrous mediums. Several assistants navigate the archive on squat ladders, and several short lines of campus-dwellers or locals stand awaiting their turn. We are directed toward a large space which seems to have just been cleared of people pending our arrival. Bisecting the two halves of the room is a long, low counter of polished wood, covered in many places by similar containers or their documents, as well as an array of writing implements and what appear to be stamps or seals. I can scarcely count ten, as opposed to the set of eight-dozen generally required to keep up with bureaucratic standards at ITU.
Standing behind the middle of this counter is a woman with blindingly white teeth and red hair, possessed of equal measures of competence, friendliness, and exhausting chipperness.
Her name is Kibra, and apparently she will be our guide for the duration of our stay at Porylus.
Within a few short talecks the paperwork is sorted out and stored away, and we are able to depart. We are somewhat dismayed to find our wagon gone upon reentering the light of day, but Kibra assures us that all of our belongings will have been brought to our accommodations by now. The promise of being able to sleep in real beds overwhelms our momentary discomfort at the well-meaning breach of privacy, and we continue on up the hill. The crowd of onlookers has thinned by now with the continuation of classes, and we are somewhat more free to go as we please without feeling... doted upon.
As we walk, our new guide offers brief insights into each major building which we pass by- on their histories, and on any possible links which can be made to similar institutions back at the ITU, whether through architecture, shared instructors, or the rare exchange program which does not peter out amid webs of silver tape.¹ I appreciate Kibra's enthusiasm, though to be honest I am not particularly interested in what binds the two campuses together so much as what sets them apart from one another.
Now, as if Porylus Mons itself has read my scribbling, we turn a sudden corner which brings us out onto the level top of the hill, where several more buildings ring a broad, circular plaza dotted with benches and fixtures of plant life or the occasional torch-post. In the plaza's center is what appears to be the most expensive piece of stonework any of us have witnessed yet on the premises. It is a tall fountain of marble and other light-colored stones, carved and smooth and gleaming, even in the half-light of this cloudy day. I do not know how the fountain functions at first glance, when there are no other points of high elevation from which water could be flowing in order to provide gravity power. But I can't be too concerned with that detail, given that I can see what is depicted upon the fountain.
An intricately carved three-dimensional representation of the white bristlecone pine of Deneroth rises up just right of the fountain's center amid branch-like cascades of water and root-shaped streams down at its base. Just to the left beside it, reaching a hand out to pluck a bulbous fruit from one low-hanging branch, is a woman, nude save for a cloth which is wrapped around her waist. She clutches her stomach, the swell of which mirrors the turgidity of the tree's trunk.
These are the two contradictory tales of Haraal's birth, merged into one.
¹ While the majority of intra-University documents are contained within traditional binding of a red (really more of a dark wine color), materials concerning communication and cooperation with its sister campus are generally distinguished by a silver (more of a faded sky-blue) wrapping. This, coupled with the complete lack of silver coinage in and around Deneroth, has led many to joke that the color simply doesn't exist in the ITU, or that working at the University makes one color-blind to it.
Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Goblin Watch, Episode 3: Mythology 2
Hello, and welcome back to Goblin Watch! The mini-series dedicated to the origins and iterations of everyone's favorite X and Y!
... Whoops, I didn't come up with variables for this intro.
Uh, let's see here... tricksters and knaves, no, I used that... critters and adventurer-fodder, no, that was from the time before last... This list really isn't going to last me as long as I had hoped unless I get creative. Maybe if I consult a thesaurus... Ah-hah!
Everyone's favorite sneaks and house-helpers! Yes, let's go with that.
Last episode, all the way back in the tumultuous year of 2018, we took a look at the earliest of the proto-goblins found in Classical Mythology- kobaloi, kabeiroi, kerkopes, ketcetera.
Today, we'll be moving forward by an indeterminate amount of time, and a few hundred kilomiles north to the interior of Central and Northern Europe, where the ancestors of the Germanic peoples settled during the later stages of the Indo-European migrations thousands of years ago. These peoples had a diverse set of religious beliefs and practices which fall under our umbrella of "Germanic mythology" today. Deities such as Odin/Wōtan, Thor/Donar, and Frigg/Frija figured prominently in those belief systems, and were venerated well into the Common Era before a shift toward newer religions caused a break in continuity. But other, smaller beings such as Heinzelmann, Hödekin, and King Goldemar persisted or even came into existence as syncretized pagan outcroppings in a predominantly Christian context. What these three men have in common in modern German(ic) folklore is that they are all kobolds.
As mentioned in previous episodes, "kobold" seems to be etymologically descended from "kobalos", meaning a mischievous spirit or rogue. This etymology comes down to us from Jacob Grimm, a German mythologist as well as the elder of the famous Brothers Grimm. But that is not the only explanation for the origin of the word. Other competing etymologies look for a native Germanic origin.These include kuba-walda ("one who rules the house"), kofewalt (a cognate to Old Saxon cofgoda or "room-god"), and the contraction of the words koben and hold ("pigsty" and "stall spirit" respectively).
Interestingly, while these home, hearth, or room-related etymologies all distance the kobold from the kobaloi or kerkopes of ancient Greek and Anatolian religion, they also cause cause the kobold to resemble in function the di penates or domestic Lares of ancient Roman religion- spirits in effigy who also presided over and protected specific locations to which they were limited. There are, broadly speaking, three types of kobolds, and the above characterization fits best with the first.
House kobolds dwell in a family's home and act as house spirits--helping with chores, offering good luck, making it wealthy in gold or grain, etc-- though they are not bound to the existence of that house, nor do they originate from it. The home and the kobold seem to have completely independent ontologies. Many stories deal with how kobolds first come to live in a house of their choosing, often by announcing their presence through some ominous event and then reacting according to how the owners of the household respond. If a small, miserable creature appears at the door during a stormy night and the residents decide to take pity upon it and welcome it in, the kobold takes up residence in order to repay the favor. Or, if wood chips and cow manure are suddenly found tracked around the house and inside of the milk containers, a family who is tolerant of it will gain a kobold for being good sports. Other times a kobold has to be deliberately attracted to the home through a very specific set of events, such as bagging and speaking magic words to a bird standing on an anthill in the woods between the hours of noon and one o'clock on Saint John's Day.
I feel like that much work and planning could have more easily gone toward hiring a normal servant.
After a house acquired a kobold, it dwelt somewhere in the building, often in or around the central hearth. The occupants were expected to care for their new house spirit by leaving offerings out at night. These often took the form of food or drink, particularly beer for the subtype of house kobold called a bieresal, known to dwell in inn cellars. It appears that mortals did not generally interact with their kobolds directly. If all was as it should be, a kobold was not visible in the flesh (or whatever other form it took). Rather, they'd be represented by small effigies and statues, made in their ugly or exaggerated image and placed around the home by its owners. Kobold idols were being carved from boxwood at least as late as the 13th century, as recounted by the German poet Konrad von Würzburg, though Konrad describes the practice as mostly being "for fun" by that point in time, rather than as part of a serious ritual practice.
Heinzelmann, Hödekin, and King Goldemar were each house kobolds, and each brought varying degrees of good fortune to their patrons. Goldemar was a great kobold in particular, being a king among kobolds with his own queen, nobles, and court in service of the human king Neveling von Hardenberg. His retribution was as terrible as his gifts were great, however. As with many kobold tales, a servant eventually tried to catch a glimpse of his invisible form by deception, and in response Goldemar killed him, chopped him up, roasted his meat, and left Castle Hardenstein after placing a curse of bad luck upon it. In fact, most of the high-profile, named kobolds in myths seem to rack up quite a body count from being angered so easily, invariably slaughtering and cannibalizing other people. Heinzelmann seems to be an exception to this, giving fair warning of his bad luck and generally acting more gentle.
Just don't ever ask him what's in the trunk of his car.
The next type is the mine kobold. These industrious workers were expert miners and metalworkers native to the shafts and tunnels of mines throughout early Renaissance-era Germany. Or rather, they lived in the stone of the shafts and tunnels. Some legends surrounding mine kobolds claim that they can actually move through solid earth the same way a human can move through open air. They seem to be more immediately malevolent toward humans than house kobolds are, with the bulk of tales about them showing them in a negative light. The sounds of kobolds working could be heard throughout otherwise quiet tunnels, and if one followed after the sounds of their drilling, shoveling, or knocking, one was liable to end up collapsing their tunnel, flooding it, or filling it with noxious fumes. Mine kobolds were also blamed for the disappearance of tools or food, or the breaking of machinery in and around the mine. But the most famous type of mine kobold trick takes a far more physical form.
They would deceive miners into prospecting what looks like rich veins of copper or silver and then mining all of the ore out, only for the miners to realize later on that the ore was worthless, devoid of precious metals, prone to causing skin irritation on contact, and sometimes possessed of a toxic gas which was released during the smelting process. These veins of junk were named after the kobolds who put them there and wisely avoided until the 18th century, when a Swedish chemist named Georg Brandt isolated a substance from it that was hitherto unknown to mineralogy. Later on in 1780, this metal was discovered to be an all new chemical element. Cobalt still bears the name of its ill-disposed creators.
Less frequently, mine kobolds were known to be benevolent, and to operate under the same system of respectful conduct and reciprocal favors as house kobolds. They were fond of such appeasements as silver and gold. In such instances, their tunnel-knocking could be interpreted as being a warning not to dig toward danger, or alternatively to dig toward hidden veins of metal. Or they could give them more poisonous cobalt. It was pretty tricky business.
This is the part where I make an aside to address the tiny, scaly elephant in the room. I believe that the classic mine kobold--a nasty interpretation of it in particular--was a partial inspiration for kobolds when they became monsters in the original release of Dungeons & Dragons. Territorial, fond of mining and traps, and antagonistic toward the subterranean creatures they lived close to (including the dwarves and gnomes whom traditional kobolds are often conflated with), these little para-goblins would go on to become an endearing and colorful part of fantasy pop-culture. I will leave the bulk of that discussion for its own episode someday, but there is one point I'd like to touch on. Oftentimes older tabletop gamers will remark at how strange it was for 3rd Edition to remake of kobolds as reptilian dragon-sycophants, but in researching for this project, I've come to wonder what inspired the "original" form of kobolds-as-adventurer-fodder to begin with. After centuries of approximately human or dwarf-like appearance, 1974 marked the date when kobolds became dog-faced goblins with scales and forehead-horns.
 |
| And let's not even get started on the Vulcan ears. |
Carrying on the spirit of odd ones out, we come to the third and final major type of kobold.
The Klabautermann is the kobold of a ship, protector of sailors and giver of good fortune to fishermen of the Baltic and North Seas. Sometimes, it will even rescue people washed overboard. It takes a fairly modern appearance, seeming to be a little man with a yellow sailor's hat or coat, and smoking a pipe filled with tobacco. Rather than having figurines or effigies of the ship's kobold, its image is often carved into the mast of the ship directly. Unlike house kobolds who come and go as they please, a Klabautermann seems more strongly associated with a particular ship. For instance, they come to protect a ship by having lived in a tree used for wood in the construction of the vessel, so the ship becomes an extension of its home. A Klabautermann is also known to carry around a caulking hammer for ship repairs, lending some credence to one etymology for Klabautermann which derives from the Low German verb kalfatern, or "to caulk". But in keeping with the theme of dualism among kobolds, Klabautermann can also be responsible for accidents and pranks aboard a ship far out at sea. And rather than being punished for trying to see the kobold's physical form, he willingly reveals himself to the crew of a ship so that they know that they are doomed by a storm or some other impending terrible event. The sea-kobold even goes down with the ship in such instances.
Similar in name and shape but different in nature is the Dutch Kabouter. A Kabouter is a small creature who commonly lives in a hill, or in modern popular culture, a large mushroom house. They are more shy of humans than dedicated house spirit kobolds, but will occasionally teach a nice young Dutchman how to make wooden shoes or deep building foundations. Kabouter men typically wear long, full beards and pointed red hats. If you're noticing how similar this appearance sounds to a certain other fictional creature, you are correct: Kabouters were famously written about and richly illustrated by Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet in their 1976 book series, Leven en werken van de Kabouter. In English this translates to "Life and works of the Kabouter", but when the book was translated for sale in English-speaking countries, "Kabouter" was replaced with the word "Gnome". Eight years later the Spanish animated television series David, el Gnomo was released, and the following year David the Gnome hit American audiences.
And he kept on swinging.
So here we have another example of syncretism between a member of the goblin family and something quite different. This conflation with other sprites and beings is as common for kobolds, up to and including King Goldemar whom I referenced above. In the cycle of legends surrounding Theoderic the Great (taking the mythical form of Dietrich von Bern), Goldemar is described not as a kobold but as a dwarf. This might be a case of the terms for such creatures being vague, overlapping, or even synonymous during the times they were first used, and then that convention carrying on into modern times. I believe that this is supported by the fact that his brother Elbegast was described as an Elf-king while hanging out and robbing people with Charlemagne in a Middle Dutch poem. Their other brother, the dwarf Alberich, appears in the Nibelungenlied and serves as a treasure guardian for the protagonist Siegfried. They were a pretty popular bunch.
Despite the long and storied histories of German and Dutch communities in the land that would eventually become part of the United States, I was surprised to find almost nothing in the way of kobold myths or traditions in modern North America. Perhaps because they were so often tied to certain houses, or particular families, or to the earth itself, the kobolds were largely left behind in the Old Country by emigrants. Of course, just because there's no popular tradition centered on them doesn't mean that they aren't here. A handful of kobolds have made their way to this "New World" over the ages, always keeping just out of human notice or the eyes of history in these strange new lands. When the Dutch privateer Jan Janszoon van Haarlem was captured by Barbary Pirates in 1618, you can be sure that his fleet's water-kobolds came in tow. When he became Murat Reis the Younger, Grand Admiral and Governor of the Republic of Salé, they hunkered down in those balmy ports and made an uneasy alliance with the Djinn of Morocco. And when his son Anthony Janszoon van Salee moved to the New Netherlands and became the first and largest grantee of land on Coney Island, they were right behind him, pleased to find a semblance of home at last. Certainly, Janszoon's descendants have enjoyed considerable good fortune for the past few centuries, being the Vanderbilt Dynasty and all.
Coincidence?
Next episode, we'll be moving further west, to the shores of France as well as the British Isles and Ireland, where we will finally touch upon the linguistically modern goblin and its Insular Celtic neighbors.
I want to give a special thanks to all of my donors and supporters, as well as to one Goody Mooncup. Without her letter to the editor and advice column, I wouldn't have completed my research for this episode nearly as "quickly".
I am the Furtive Goblin, this was Goblin Watch, and I thank you for listening!
Dowden, Ken. European Paganism. Taylor & Francis, 2002.
Grimm, Jacob.Teutonic Mythology, Part 2. Kessinger Publishing, 2003 [1883].
Rose, Carol. Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins: An Encyclopedia. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1996.
Despite the long and storied histories of German and Dutch communities in the land that would eventually become part of the United States, I was surprised to find almost nothing in the way of kobold myths or traditions in modern North America. Perhaps because they were so often tied to certain houses, or particular families, or to the earth itself, the kobolds were largely left behind in the Old Country by emigrants. Of course, just because there's no popular tradition centered on them doesn't mean that they aren't here. A handful of kobolds have made their way to this "New World" over the ages, always keeping just out of human notice or the eyes of history in these strange new lands. When the Dutch privateer Jan Janszoon van Haarlem was captured by Barbary Pirates in 1618, you can be sure that his fleet's water-kobolds came in tow. When he became Murat Reis the Younger, Grand Admiral and Governor of the Republic of Salé, they hunkered down in those balmy ports and made an uneasy alliance with the Djinn of Morocco. And when his son Anthony Janszoon van Salee moved to the New Netherlands and became the first and largest grantee of land on Coney Island, they were right behind him, pleased to find a semblance of home at last. Certainly, Janszoon's descendants have enjoyed considerable good fortune for the past few centuries, being the Vanderbilt Dynasty and all.
Coincidence?
Next episode, we'll be moving further west, to the shores of France as well as the British Isles and Ireland, where we will finally touch upon the linguistically modern goblin and its Insular Celtic neighbors.
I want to give a special thanks to all of my donors and supporters, as well as to one Goody Mooncup. Without her letter to the editor and advice column, I wouldn't have completed my research for this episode nearly as "quickly".
I am the Furtive Goblin, this was Goblin Watch, and I thank you for listening!
Dowden, Ken. European Paganism. Taylor & Francis, 2002.
Grimm, Jacob.Teutonic Mythology, Part 2. Kessinger Publishing, 2003 [1883].
Rose, Carol. Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins: An Encyclopedia. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1996.
Monday, January 21, 2019
Looking Southward and Backward, Part 20.
The days pass, and winter settles deeper around us. Our wagons reach the outskirts of the muddy land on which Porylus was founded, and are relieved to find that the earth has frozen up substantially. Rather than mucking through trackless fields for an extra few days, we are staying on schedule while serenaded by the constant, uncanny crackle and crunch of frost beneath our feet, wheels, and hooves.
It reminds Hraela of the sounds of the rivers back home, and we are treated to another one of her tales of Gertish folkways, which I am always more than happy to hear. After the burning of children in effigy has been taken care of and a village is settled in for the long haul of winter, ice becomes a source of occasional diversion. Apparently it is a custom to strap bones to one's feet and use them to glide across the surface of a frozen river. The rivers can produce a fine layer of thin, blackish ice which apparently makes a very eerie sound when glided upon, or when stones are skipped across it. Skilled ice-gliders are able to produce series of sounds and notes bordering on music. Unskilled gliders tend to fall and sink, their ghosts lingering below the river's surface and adding to the intensity of other gliders' performances by chancing them around under the ice during subsequent winters.
Sarq asks her if her people have any traditions that don't involve someone dying horribly in some way.
She scoffs, but does not otherwise reply.
We are jarred from our discussion by the sound of shouting up ahead. Not particularly spirited or angry shouting, but the kind of shouts used to carry a conversation long distances through cold air. We stick our heads out from below the wagon cover and crane our necks, and eventually spot a figure on a hilltop overlooking our procession, body dark against the pale grey smoke which rises up from a squat chimney behind it. They wave a rather large grain scythe around in our general direction. Apparently the snow cover obscured a series of property markers, and we've torn through some farmer's field. Fortunately it is fallow this time of year, so we've done no real damage, and the farmer will not be bringing that scythe and two-dozen relatives down to speak with us personally- assuming we are quick to extract ourselves from their property.
I can already tell that I will enjoy our stay here.
While cresting the next few hills we are far more cautious about staying on the road, and we begin to see towers in the distance. The tallest catches our eyes, and for good reason. It is the tower which was once the heart of the Ivory-Campus-at-Porylus, and its architecture is a clear hearkening-back to our beige city. In fact, for the past two hundred-odd years it has been said to be even more ITU-like than the tower of the ITU itself, stature notwithstanding.
The exact details of the controversy (if it could even be called that) are vague to this generation, but what is known is that the damage sustained by the former study-observatory of Laizij was damaged during or immediately after the events of the Rupture. The domed roof of the tower collapsed and a section of wall on the top level sloughed off to one side. The damage to the Eternal Scholar's personal study was a severe blow to the ego of the University. Curiously however, instead of working to erase the memory that it had ever happened, the Directorate decided to embrace the wound. The debris and top floor remain untouched, except what was needed in order to shore up the integrity rest of the building, and Board meetings continue as they have for centuries, just one floor lower than previous generations enjoyed.
Damaged relics and artifacts, including the section of wall, were incorporated into the ritual practices of the University's religious functionaries, adding a dimension of grief and mourning to the previously stuffy and emotionless practice of the Eccentric's most devout followers. If money was ever presented for the tower's full restoration--as many have suspected must have been the case at one point or another--it never saw the light of day. Rumors of embezzlement or deep, generations-long rivalries between Board members and their successors are popular among freshmen and library wall graffiti to this day. I suspect the story could be blown wide-open and exposed, if anyone ever took an interest in that sort of high-tier budget trivia and administrator gossip.
But that is a story for another time, and hopefully another person. More than towers are creeping into view now.
Roofs of red, white, or black checker the outskirts which grow organically outward from the center-most cluster of the city. Mud brick, wood, stone, and other materials make up the walls supporting them, none of them ordered together or separated in any manner that suggests a rigidly-enforced policy of hereditary decorum along family lines. And amid that refreshing forest chaos can be seen people stamping along in the cold or driving wagons this way and that along streets of raised earth and cobblestones. They don't pay us any mind as we near the outskirts. No one stops to stare or make a crude remark relating to graduate students or mistaken associations with wizardry. We are nothing special here. It is almost like we are back in a nicer district of the False City, though Porylus has only a fraction of the former's population.
Our caravan splits at a forked street, the majority of our help going right to find suitable lodging for the night. We continue on toward the left, into the city center. Taller, older, and more stately buildings are here, from the better decades following the city's founding. And nestled amid them, delineated by little more than a waist-high stone wall with wide openings, is the campus proper. The school here is arranged spirally, with the gradual inward, rightward turn of the main road culminating in the historical tower at the hill's crest and center. I don't know the reason for the spiral shape, though my guess would be that it was seen as an auspicious sign by those old alumni of Laizij's entourage.
Before we are able to reach the beginning of the incline, we see a crowd forming as if out of thin air. They are an irregular bunch of mostly young folk, with a few comparable to my age or a bit older peppered throughout. I count between twenty and thirty.
And they are all staring at us.
And they are... smiling? And waving?
We do not realize that they are students of Porylus until they tell us so, and we do not believe this for a good couple of moments afterward. But apparently our coming was announced, and these people willingly, without duress or threat of academic discipline, chose to come and welcome us. Several of them even introduce themselves as members of the university's representative sporting team, and they seem confused by our momentarily frightened questions of where they are hiding their spike-toed boots and wooden clubs. Evidently "sport" means "sport" in the local dialect, and not "heavily armed and bored children of wealthy families harassing people for fun and profit", as in Deneroth. Hraela is hesitant to let go of the grip of her training sword until they convince us of their peaceful intent, all while the rest of the students or off-duty faculty laugh at what they perceive to be a big joke.
Gradually, the others are compelled to hop down from the wagon and join with the small crowd, which picks up a few stragglers as we make our winding way up through the campus. Hands are shaken, names exchanged, and interest in the Ivory way of things is piqued. I even hear something resembling a compliment about the school uniform, which Porylus entirely lacks. Sarq, Ciudo, and even Hraela seem to enjoy themselves.
As I watch them, I am overtaken by a deep, wounding nostalgia which I've no right nor reason to feel.
It reminds Hraela of the sounds of the rivers back home, and we are treated to another one of her tales of Gertish folkways, which I am always more than happy to hear. After the burning of children in effigy has been taken care of and a village is settled in for the long haul of winter, ice becomes a source of occasional diversion. Apparently it is a custom to strap bones to one's feet and use them to glide across the surface of a frozen river. The rivers can produce a fine layer of thin, blackish ice which apparently makes a very eerie sound when glided upon, or when stones are skipped across it. Skilled ice-gliders are able to produce series of sounds and notes bordering on music. Unskilled gliders tend to fall and sink, their ghosts lingering below the river's surface and adding to the intensity of other gliders' performances by chancing them around under the ice during subsequent winters.
Sarq asks her if her people have any traditions that don't involve someone dying horribly in some way.
She scoffs, but does not otherwise reply.
We are jarred from our discussion by the sound of shouting up ahead. Not particularly spirited or angry shouting, but the kind of shouts used to carry a conversation long distances through cold air. We stick our heads out from below the wagon cover and crane our necks, and eventually spot a figure on a hilltop overlooking our procession, body dark against the pale grey smoke which rises up from a squat chimney behind it. They wave a rather large grain scythe around in our general direction. Apparently the snow cover obscured a series of property markers, and we've torn through some farmer's field. Fortunately it is fallow this time of year, so we've done no real damage, and the farmer will not be bringing that scythe and two-dozen relatives down to speak with us personally- assuming we are quick to extract ourselves from their property.
I can already tell that I will enjoy our stay here.
While cresting the next few hills we are far more cautious about staying on the road, and we begin to see towers in the distance. The tallest catches our eyes, and for good reason. It is the tower which was once the heart of the Ivory-Campus-at-Porylus, and its architecture is a clear hearkening-back to our beige city. In fact, for the past two hundred-odd years it has been said to be even more ITU-like than the tower of the ITU itself, stature notwithstanding.
The exact details of the controversy (if it could even be called that) are vague to this generation, but what is known is that the damage sustained by the former study-observatory of Laizij was damaged during or immediately after the events of the Rupture. The domed roof of the tower collapsed and a section of wall on the top level sloughed off to one side. The damage to the Eternal Scholar's personal study was a severe blow to the ego of the University. Curiously however, instead of working to erase the memory that it had ever happened, the Directorate decided to embrace the wound. The debris and top floor remain untouched, except what was needed in order to shore up the integrity rest of the building, and Board meetings continue as they have for centuries, just one floor lower than previous generations enjoyed.
Damaged relics and artifacts, including the section of wall, were incorporated into the ritual practices of the University's religious functionaries, adding a dimension of grief and mourning to the previously stuffy and emotionless practice of the Eccentric's most devout followers. If money was ever presented for the tower's full restoration--as many have suspected must have been the case at one point or another--it never saw the light of day. Rumors of embezzlement or deep, generations-long rivalries between Board members and their successors are popular among freshmen and library wall graffiti to this day. I suspect the story could be blown wide-open and exposed, if anyone ever took an interest in that sort of high-tier budget trivia and administrator gossip.
But that is a story for another time, and hopefully another person. More than towers are creeping into view now.
Roofs of red, white, or black checker the outskirts which grow organically outward from the center-most cluster of the city. Mud brick, wood, stone, and other materials make up the walls supporting them, none of them ordered together or separated in any manner that suggests a rigidly-enforced policy of hereditary decorum along family lines. And amid that refreshing forest chaos can be seen people stamping along in the cold or driving wagons this way and that along streets of raised earth and cobblestones. They don't pay us any mind as we near the outskirts. No one stops to stare or make a crude remark relating to graduate students or mistaken associations with wizardry. We are nothing special here. It is almost like we are back in a nicer district of the False City, though Porylus has only a fraction of the former's population.
Our caravan splits at a forked street, the majority of our help going right to find suitable lodging for the night. We continue on toward the left, into the city center. Taller, older, and more stately buildings are here, from the better decades following the city's founding. And nestled amid them, delineated by little more than a waist-high stone wall with wide openings, is the campus proper. The school here is arranged spirally, with the gradual inward, rightward turn of the main road culminating in the historical tower at the hill's crest and center. I don't know the reason for the spiral shape, though my guess would be that it was seen as an auspicious sign by those old alumni of Laizij's entourage.
Before we are able to reach the beginning of the incline, we see a crowd forming as if out of thin air. They are an irregular bunch of mostly young folk, with a few comparable to my age or a bit older peppered throughout. I count between twenty and thirty.
And they are all staring at us.
And they are... smiling? And waving?
We do not realize that they are students of Porylus until they tell us so, and we do not believe this for a good couple of moments afterward. But apparently our coming was announced, and these people willingly, without duress or threat of academic discipline, chose to come and welcome us. Several of them even introduce themselves as members of the university's representative sporting team, and they seem confused by our momentarily frightened questions of where they are hiding their spike-toed boots and wooden clubs. Evidently "sport" means "sport" in the local dialect, and not "heavily armed and bored children of wealthy families harassing people for fun and profit", as in Deneroth. Hraela is hesitant to let go of the grip of her training sword until they convince us of their peaceful intent, all while the rest of the students or off-duty faculty laugh at what they perceive to be a big joke.
Gradually, the others are compelled to hop down from the wagon and join with the small crowd, which picks up a few stragglers as we make our winding way up through the campus. Hands are shaken, names exchanged, and interest in the Ivory way of things is piqued. I even hear something resembling a compliment about the school uniform, which Porylus entirely lacks. Sarq, Ciudo, and even Hraela seem to enjoy themselves.
As I watch them, I am overtaken by a deep, wounding nostalgia which I've no right nor reason to feel.
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Looking Southward and Backward, Part 13.
I look up from a hastily-scrawled side-note on the early origins of the pastoralists who once called this region home, as well as a personal note to elaborate upon that history in full at a later time, to see the imposing structure of the alehouse looming much closer.
For what it is worth, the building does seem to have several hallmarks of authenticity to it, both in terms of architecture and upkeep. Both Hraela and I are surprised to find that there are many features to the alehouse consistent with the style of building used by the more southerly and easterly kin-groups of Gertish peoples who, owing to the greater drainage of the broad expanses of relatively sandy land they inhabit, are more given to mixed agriculture than to fishing and more intensive river industries. In fact, Hraela finds herself admitting that it resembles a farmhouse she once saw at Hoehpleg.
Yes, the dense thatch roof has been garishly painted over in a variety of dyes to produce symbols and imagery of wild animals, nonexistent clan lineages, and scenes of battle. And indeed, the crossed beams above the roof's front gable, though accurate, are thickly gilded and shaped like snarling unwelcoming wolf's heads. But the walls, obviously made from wooden boards, have been textured to resemble wattle and daub from a distance, and a pole bearing some sort of potted plant on a rope could serve no other purpose but to indicate the readiness of the proprietress' latest brew. For every stretch of soulless, clueless pandering, there is a very clear indicator of care taken, and of knowledge of the genuine craft and practices. Perhaps it is that sense of compromise and wasted potential that wounds Hraela the most.
At the very least, she has relaxed her grip on her training sword without my needing to bring up that any violent reaction to the farce on her part could, conceivably, be construed as a reinforcement of certain hot-blooded stereotypes "enjoyed" by Gerts in the south.
Beyond the large alehouse structure itself, the accuracy quickly dissipates. Nearby, at another terminus of the joined roads we are rolling over, the actual travel-house and stables stands. It uses far more stone and mortar, its roof is far less steep, and its somewhat boxy nature gives it away as Denerothi in influence. It could easily pass as a chain of residences along the lowest tier of the city, or perhaps a particularly wealthy family's storehouse higher up. Past its prodigious gatehouse I can see several wheeled vehicles and their animals being loaded or unloaded, and there are sounds of carousal between caravan teams and traders almost as loud as those issuing forth from the alehouse itself. A dark beeline of liquid stains the shortest path between both buildings, where countless containers of alcohol have recently been sloshed or spilled during the frantic back-and-forth runs of the servers staffing both locations. It seems we've arrived on an unusually busy day, despite how dead and empty the roads seemed up to this point. I am remound that, for some travelers, the alehouse is as much a destination as it is a stop-off.
As we draw closer to the gate and Elrusyo leaps off of the side of our wagon in order to go about a task which he refers to opaquely as "getting a feel for the place", Ciudo attests to the diversity of patrons. One of our mixed Esgodarran guides asks for the overnight fee in a pronounced "Woodlands" accent, to which one of the men posted at the entrance responds with a hand gesture and an accent indicative of the south-central Ersuut spoken by people from Porylus to Meroth. And when the taskmaster pays for our party's stay in pieces of roughly-hewn electrum, everyone within earshot bursts out in a series of uproarious exclamations and jokes at the expense of the Ivory Tower originating from an eastern Nambarish dialect. I knew I should have petitioned for our budget to be supplied in the form of something more universally acceptable, like tin or lead.
His excitement at the linguistic confluence somewhat distracts me from my fears that we will be targeted for casual assault, robbery, or urination upon University-owned equipment before night's end.
For what it is worth, the building does seem to have several hallmarks of authenticity to it, both in terms of architecture and upkeep. Both Hraela and I are surprised to find that there are many features to the alehouse consistent with the style of building used by the more southerly and easterly kin-groups of Gertish peoples who, owing to the greater drainage of the broad expanses of relatively sandy land they inhabit, are more given to mixed agriculture than to fishing and more intensive river industries. In fact, Hraela finds herself admitting that it resembles a farmhouse she once saw at Hoehpleg.
Yes, the dense thatch roof has been garishly painted over in a variety of dyes to produce symbols and imagery of wild animals, nonexistent clan lineages, and scenes of battle. And indeed, the crossed beams above the roof's front gable, though accurate, are thickly gilded and shaped like snarling unwelcoming wolf's heads. But the walls, obviously made from wooden boards, have been textured to resemble wattle and daub from a distance, and a pole bearing some sort of potted plant on a rope could serve no other purpose but to indicate the readiness of the proprietress' latest brew. For every stretch of soulless, clueless pandering, there is a very clear indicator of care taken, and of knowledge of the genuine craft and practices. Perhaps it is that sense of compromise and wasted potential that wounds Hraela the most.
At the very least, she has relaxed her grip on her training sword without my needing to bring up that any violent reaction to the farce on her part could, conceivably, be construed as a reinforcement of certain hot-blooded stereotypes "enjoyed" by Gerts in the south.
Beyond the large alehouse structure itself, the accuracy quickly dissipates. Nearby, at another terminus of the joined roads we are rolling over, the actual travel-house and stables stands. It uses far more stone and mortar, its roof is far less steep, and its somewhat boxy nature gives it away as Denerothi in influence. It could easily pass as a chain of residences along the lowest tier of the city, or perhaps a particularly wealthy family's storehouse higher up. Past its prodigious gatehouse I can see several wheeled vehicles and their animals being loaded or unloaded, and there are sounds of carousal between caravan teams and traders almost as loud as those issuing forth from the alehouse itself. A dark beeline of liquid stains the shortest path between both buildings, where countless containers of alcohol have recently been sloshed or spilled during the frantic back-and-forth runs of the servers staffing both locations. It seems we've arrived on an unusually busy day, despite how dead and empty the roads seemed up to this point. I am remound that, for some travelers, the alehouse is as much a destination as it is a stop-off.
As we draw closer to the gate and Elrusyo leaps off of the side of our wagon in order to go about a task which he refers to opaquely as "getting a feel for the place", Ciudo attests to the diversity of patrons. One of our mixed Esgodarran guides asks for the overnight fee in a pronounced "Woodlands" accent, to which one of the men posted at the entrance responds with a hand gesture and an accent indicative of the south-central Ersuut spoken by people from Porylus to Meroth. And when the taskmaster pays for our party's stay in pieces of roughly-hewn electrum, everyone within earshot bursts out in a series of uproarious exclamations and jokes at the expense of the Ivory Tower originating from an eastern Nambarish dialect. I knew I should have petitioned for our budget to be supplied in the form of something more universally acceptable, like tin or lead.
His excitement at the linguistic confluence somewhat distracts me from my fears that we will be targeted for casual assault, robbery, or urination upon University-owned equipment before night's end.
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Looking Southward and Backward, Part 4.
I suppose that it is now a wise time to address the horking zood cow in the parlor.
The Ivory Tower University is not in the business of studying or enacting magic, as I hope would be painfully obvious to any reader located within the campus grounds or city proper. But for those theoretical readers beyond, I must emphasize this. Though the imperial ban on any form of conjuration not to the personal liking of Haraal have long since dissipated into the ether of liquidated law books and disintegrated regimes, it lives on strong in the practice and outlook of the ITU's administration. "Suffer not the witch to matriculate" has been one of the most hallowed of bullet points in the University's code, right below "say not in one word what could be said in one thousand".
But that is not to say that there aren't certain peculiarities surrounding the Tower which could easily be construed as "magic".
Laizij was a brilliant mind, and though he was deified shortly after his passing, I do not refer to the cult which formed around him, nor their rituals. Rather, I focus on a tradition which he started long before any of that. The detached perspective which the Grand Scholar possessed allowed him to take some particularly odd angles on what would otherwise seem to be self-evident truths about the world around him. He found that while knowledge is powerful, it is conviction in that knowledge which allows one to utilize it fully, or transcend it.
Take for example the time of sunrise on a particular day. Laizij and his disciples, as well as many students of the University today, are accomplished in astronomical calculations, and may come within a margin of error of seconds as to the time at which the sun crests the eastern horizon. Laizij knew that full and well. But one day, his notes and telescope were tampered with. The official narrative perhaps unsurprisingly pins these deeds on the followers of Dherna, but one blasphemous alternative is that he simply was mistaken one night over his calculations. Regardless of how it happened, Laizij's sunrise equation had the sun rising exactly two talecks earlier than it was supposed to.
And then it did.
Initially it was not noticed by anyone else, but Laizij did his calculations in batches, so over the next few weeks it became more and more clear to his students and fellow scholars that something was wrong. Or exceptionally right, as Laizij insisted. He was a proud man, proud of his intellect, and he was insulted at the idea that he could have miscalculated by such a wide margin. So adamant was he that those around him began to find their own math not adding up properly any longer, even if not a single number were changed from how it should have worked days prior. Even today, centuries after that fateful transformation, the sun rises earlier when it is being observed from grounds of the First Tier.
This adjustment to reality appears not to persist very far beyond the walls of the city's uppermost level, however. A lengthy dispute has developed over it in fact, when in AR 96 the amateur astronomer Throne-Steward Ilritus Mesyor erected his own observation deck upon the citadel's tower, which is in fact taller and higher than the crumbling point of the Ivory Tower.¹ Academic correspondence between the citadel and the University eventually revealed this inconsistency to both parties, and the dispute has been raging ever since, at least as much as astronomers are capable of raging.
Other inconsistencies and examples of "corrected reality" present themselves across Deneroth from time to time. Despite the earliness of sunrise, solar eclipses tend to occur half an hour later for the University than for the rest of the city. So much so that those highborn enthusiasts who miss such a celestial event "the first time around" have been known to catch it "again" by sneaking or paying their way onto the campus grounds. Water weights slightly less within the campus, and so the aqueducts in use there are uncommonly light, elegant, and made of materials which would otherwise give way quickly to water erosion. Meanwhile, they are substantially larger and more reinforced on all other tiers. Convoluted puns become objectively more funny the higher up one climbs, with negligible statistic impact on crowds even being recorded a few yards outside of the city walls.
Most far-reaching, and perhaps most potent, is how differently history played out from the perspective of all of Deneroth. While generally unpopular abroad, the histories written by Denerothi chroniclers become more true the closer to the city one comes, even if the events they pertain to happened long ago and far away. On at least one occasion, the Nambarish adventurer Anrar found that his own annotated travelogues of Sarq the Interviewer became somehow less annotated, and more concerned with the genealogies of Haraalians, at around the time that he had crossed the border between Outer Esgodar and Deneroth proper.
These and other curiosities too numerous to list have trickled down from the Tower and through the connected Ersuunian world, often picking up exaggerations or added elements. Over time they've woven together to present the Ivory Tower University as something mystical, almost as sorcerous as it is proud and arrogant, and willing to visit any naysayers and dissidents with a judicious bolt of lightning.
Perhaps the faculty and staff secretly take pleasure in that last facet, despite their general distaste for the rumors.
¹ The damage sustained by the Tower proper during the Rupture has famously remained unrepaired in the centuries since, owing to the building codes set in place by one of the descendants of Haraal who came to administer the city and province. Traditional Denerothi law prohibited a secular power from building or establishing its headquarters upon the highest tier. Feeling spurned, the prince erected his gubernatorial citadel to exceed the height of the Tower by the length of the tail-hair of an ox. Further, he forbade the construction or alteration of any building in the city which would exceed the grandeur of the citadel. Such a visual challenge for supremacy and authority within the city was easy enough to ignore from the ground, but when the Tremors caused the Tower's highest point to collapse, the University sorely felt the prohibition which that same prince had set in place, as if he had seen the future.
The Ivory Tower University is not in the business of studying or enacting magic, as I hope would be painfully obvious to any reader located within the campus grounds or city proper. But for those theoretical readers beyond, I must emphasize this. Though the imperial ban on any form of conjuration not to the personal liking of Haraal have long since dissipated into the ether of liquidated law books and disintegrated regimes, it lives on strong in the practice and outlook of the ITU's administration. "Suffer not the witch to matriculate" has been one of the most hallowed of bullet points in the University's code, right below "say not in one word what could be said in one thousand".
But that is not to say that there aren't certain peculiarities surrounding the Tower which could easily be construed as "magic".
Laizij was a brilliant mind, and though he was deified shortly after his passing, I do not refer to the cult which formed around him, nor their rituals. Rather, I focus on a tradition which he started long before any of that. The detached perspective which the Grand Scholar possessed allowed him to take some particularly odd angles on what would otherwise seem to be self-evident truths about the world around him. He found that while knowledge is powerful, it is conviction in that knowledge which allows one to utilize it fully, or transcend it.
Take for example the time of sunrise on a particular day. Laizij and his disciples, as well as many students of the University today, are accomplished in astronomical calculations, and may come within a margin of error of seconds as to the time at which the sun crests the eastern horizon. Laizij knew that full and well. But one day, his notes and telescope were tampered with. The official narrative perhaps unsurprisingly pins these deeds on the followers of Dherna, but one blasphemous alternative is that he simply was mistaken one night over his calculations. Regardless of how it happened, Laizij's sunrise equation had the sun rising exactly two talecks earlier than it was supposed to.
And then it did.
Initially it was not noticed by anyone else, but Laizij did his calculations in batches, so over the next few weeks it became more and more clear to his students and fellow scholars that something was wrong. Or exceptionally right, as Laizij insisted. He was a proud man, proud of his intellect, and he was insulted at the idea that he could have miscalculated by such a wide margin. So adamant was he that those around him began to find their own math not adding up properly any longer, even if not a single number were changed from how it should have worked days prior. Even today, centuries after that fateful transformation, the sun rises earlier when it is being observed from grounds of the First Tier.
This adjustment to reality appears not to persist very far beyond the walls of the city's uppermost level, however. A lengthy dispute has developed over it in fact, when in AR 96 the amateur astronomer Throne-Steward Ilritus Mesyor erected his own observation deck upon the citadel's tower, which is in fact taller and higher than the crumbling point of the Ivory Tower.¹ Academic correspondence between the citadel and the University eventually revealed this inconsistency to both parties, and the dispute has been raging ever since, at least as much as astronomers are capable of raging.
Other inconsistencies and examples of "corrected reality" present themselves across Deneroth from time to time. Despite the earliness of sunrise, solar eclipses tend to occur half an hour later for the University than for the rest of the city. So much so that those highborn enthusiasts who miss such a celestial event "the first time around" have been known to catch it "again" by sneaking or paying their way onto the campus grounds. Water weights slightly less within the campus, and so the aqueducts in use there are uncommonly light, elegant, and made of materials which would otherwise give way quickly to water erosion. Meanwhile, they are substantially larger and more reinforced on all other tiers. Convoluted puns become objectively more funny the higher up one climbs, with negligible statistic impact on crowds even being recorded a few yards outside of the city walls.
Most far-reaching, and perhaps most potent, is how differently history played out from the perspective of all of Deneroth. While generally unpopular abroad, the histories written by Denerothi chroniclers become more true the closer to the city one comes, even if the events they pertain to happened long ago and far away. On at least one occasion, the Nambarish adventurer Anrar found that his own annotated travelogues of Sarq the Interviewer became somehow less annotated, and more concerned with the genealogies of Haraalians, at around the time that he had crossed the border between Outer Esgodar and Deneroth proper.
These and other curiosities too numerous to list have trickled down from the Tower and through the connected Ersuunian world, often picking up exaggerations or added elements. Over time they've woven together to present the Ivory Tower University as something mystical, almost as sorcerous as it is proud and arrogant, and willing to visit any naysayers and dissidents with a judicious bolt of lightning.
Perhaps the faculty and staff secretly take pleasure in that last facet, despite their general distaste for the rumors.
¹ The damage sustained by the Tower proper during the Rupture has famously remained unrepaired in the centuries since, owing to the building codes set in place by one of the descendants of Haraal who came to administer the city and province. Traditional Denerothi law prohibited a secular power from building or establishing its headquarters upon the highest tier. Feeling spurned, the prince erected his gubernatorial citadel to exceed the height of the Tower by the length of the tail-hair of an ox. Further, he forbade the construction or alteration of any building in the city which would exceed the grandeur of the citadel. Such a visual challenge for supremacy and authority within the city was easy enough to ignore from the ground, but when the Tremors caused the Tower's highest point to collapse, the University sorely felt the prohibition which that same prince had set in place, as if he had seen the future.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Looking Southward and Backward, Part 3.
My assistants all turn to me with a variety of questions as we advance through the vast disk of lowland cityscape.
Most of them have been outside of the city walls of Deneroth proper at least once in their lives, but true knowledge and understanding of the place tends to be scarce for people who lair within. That the University where we all dwell keeps strict regulations on the availability of information pertaining to the False City does not help either. But they know that I have been outside numerous times, or at least would not be surprised to find that I did, having heard so many other rumors about my person.
One question sticks out in my mind as I write, and I will take the occasion to commit it and its answer--or the closest to one which I can conjure--to writing.
"How did the False City come to be? Why is it named so?"
Admittedly these are two questions rather than one, but their answer returns to the same moment in history.
Nigh on nine hundred years ago, according to the official Imperial Narrative¹, the city of Deneroth was founded by Laizij, who was in life the companion, adviser, and close friend of Haraal, renowned god-emperor and wooer of women who would unleash a hundred generations of sons upon the Ersuunian Basin. Laizij was the most brilliant mind of his day or any which has come after, and he was highly valued by Haraal as inventor and philosopher both. But he was also wary of the then-mortal Eternal Scholar's mind. While enormously creative, he also tended to drift from subject to subject without completing a project into which huge amounts of resources had been channeled, and he was prone to revealing state secrets in mumbled self-conversation regardless of company.
Additionally, Laizij was somewhat mistrusted by the horse peoples and Gertisch tribes whom Haraal had united under the banner emblazoned with his own image. They saw him as a moon-touched sorcerer whose mind was at risk of spilling over with magic at any given moment, eradicating any who had the misfortune to be close by at the time. That Laizij's own personal retinue of followers was at best stubbornly devoted and at worst slavishly worshipful of him and his person, did not help matters at all. Nor did the fact that there was, officially, an imperial ban on the practice of any and all occultism, witchcraft, and conjuration (read: mathematics, calculation, and rhetorical discourse).
So, Haraal decided to give his scholar a monumental task of busywork to distract him with, while he continued with his own personal crusade against the universal tyranny of governments which didn't have him as their head. A lonely pinnacle of rock in the middle of some recently de-Esgodarrified Esgodarran flatland was given to Laizij, and the Grand Scholar proceeded to have an equally grand place of learning and repository of knowledge erected upon its summit. But as his floor plan for the labyrinthine seminary blossomed and ballooned, Laizij quickly ran out of pinnacle to build upon. So he devised a way to build up the rest of the mountain around it by constructing massive concentric circles of white stone and grey earth outward from the protrusion of bedrock. Soon the nameless mountain was completely swallowed up by the edifice, and the Eight Ivory Tiers² of Deneroth were created.
"Deneroth", meaning "Leaving of the Dark/Black", has been hypothesized to refer to the dark onyx or obsidian color of the original peak vanishing under the city's construction. In the canon of the University, it refers to how the benighted minds of the Ersuunian lands would at last know the bright light of truth and learning. Alternatively, and more to my liking, folk etymology refers to how Laizij's dark brown head of hair grayed to stark white from stress and obsession over the creation of his city.
"Deneroth", meaning "Leaving of the Dark/Black", has been hypothesized to refer to the dark onyx or obsidian color of the original peak vanishing under the city's construction. In the canon of the University, it refers to how the benighted minds of the Ersuunian lands would at last know the bright light of truth and learning. Alternatively, and more to my liking, folk etymology refers to how Laizij's dark brown head of hair grayed to stark white from stress and obsession over the creation of his city.
Laizij, being a decent employer despite his eccentricities, ensured that each and every servant and laborer involved in this great project was then housed within the city. But Laizij, being an eccentric despite his decent traits as an employer, adamantly refused to allow his city to be altered in any way after the final capstone had been placed. Despite the fact that the size of the city tiers exactly matched what was comfortable for their population densities, there would never, ever be any expansions or additions to this perfect city-from-a-hill.
As one might expect, populations fluctuated as families shrank or expanded, as they are wont to do, yet Laizij's administration rigidly maintained the deeds and demarcations of the city's founding. Palaces of declining families stood nearly empty for decades, clustered together mere yards away from a household perpetually filled to bursting.
But it was still a beacon of wealth and learning, and that drew outsiders. Outsiders who legally had no right to anything in, around, or related to the city, but who would damn well try their best anyway. And so, less than ten years after Deneroth's founding, the first cottages were built outside of the city's prodigious outer walls. These first "intrusions" were tolerated but conspicuously ignored, for many were farmers who would reclaim the plains from the wilderness after they had been depopulated by the passage of the Haraalians. Soon after, tradesmen and other skilled individuals came to cater to the needs of the farmers, and of the city-dwellers, whenever possible. Like a mass of camp followers surrounding its immovable vanguard, folk of all walks of life but scholastic nobility came and built the ground-level up and out.
There were once whispers of this place having the potential to become Deneroth's "Ninth" Tier, but Laizij went to his grave defaming the idea of his greatest creation being altered for the sake of convenience. Eventually one of Haraal's thousand sons was appointed as governor of the city, but the elite was so deeply entrenched and reliant upon the memory of the newly-deified Eternal Scholar for prestige and legitimacy that no one with half a desire to could change the official policies.
Unofficial incorporation occurred from the very start, of course. The denizens of Deneroth were thrilled to have such a vigorous connection to the outside world then as well as now, even if they didn't (and still don't) like to admit it. Luxury items form afar could be tidily delivered to the city's doorstep thanks to the False City and its exploding economy, as well as very real necessities of life which would otherwise have to be imported over long distances. The land on which the False City was built was incorporated into the burgeoning Province of Deneroth as the Empire consolidated and regulated its internal organs. It only took about a half-dozen bandit raids and a districts-wide conflagration to convince the city administration to include the wider area within its military and firefighting jurisdictions. Unfortunately, incorporating the land into the domain of Deneroth also meant that the denizens of the False City were considered to be squatters, and more than a few governors in past centuries have drummed up the political support of restless traditionalists by sending "pacification units" into the outer districts in order to help clear them out. Of course these have been pointless gestures up to now. Pointless, but quite adept at bludgeoning nonetheless.
And so the dogged False City continued to grow. It saw hardship and retraction just like any other province when the Rupture thundered over us from the south. But it also bounced back with the startling alacrity unique to people who seek self-validation instead of denied recognition. For nearly three hundred years now, it has provided the Successor-State of Deneroth with a much-needed buffer against the outside world, as well as a vital (if undesired) link to it.
Now that we are more than a few miles out from First Gate, the exclamations and heckling of locals thrown in our caravan's direction evokes another question which I am far more loathe to try and answer.
"Why does everyone out here think that the University is full of wizards?"
¹ Curiously, research conducted on artifacts preserved within the Ivory Tower's Sanctum of Self-Reflection suggest that urban habitation of the Denerothi Plain did not begin until approximately six hundred years ago, and efforts to reconcile this sizable gulf in dates has been met with limited success. The University's official response to these and other inconsistencies has been "Shut up, Litte."
² An urban myth persists that Laizij was initially content with only seven tiers in his city, but that he later changed his mind after he heard tell from one of his underlings of another far-off majestic city of white stone with exactly seven layers. Not to be outdone, or gods forbid, matched, Laizij demanded that the eighth tier be created. When it was explained to him that they had already reached ground level at the bottom and completed the University at the top, he explained that they simply needed to lift everything up and then slip it underneath. This legend, though amusing, remains unsubstantiated.
Saturday, November 4, 2017
Looking Southward and Backward: An Ethnographic and Historically-Minded Travelogue, Part 1.
((As I cling to the seat of a bus shuddering down 9W toward the only part of New York State which doesn't count as "upstate", two things occur to me.
One is a sense of bemusement born from a simultaneous gratefulness for the presence of bus wifi, and terror at an absence of bus seat belts.
The other is that I have never given sufficient thought to the importance, frequency, or severity of travel in the universe of the ITU.
Of course I have explicitly or implicitly explained the importance of movement and migration for the nomads and semi-nomads of the world, and perhaps that is in fact the norm at this time; the vast world has been disconnected for some time, with maintained roads and traveler culture long ago abandoned.
But now that a certain pasty academic has been temporarily ejected from his subscalanean office, the perfect opportunity arises for a few travelogues between now and his arrival at a certain dig site. For those of you who prefer his more researched articles, have no fear. Plenty of his parchments remain scattered upon the desk attached to his doorway, ripe for publication... after they've been sanitized of sensitive subject matter unbecoming of the publishing house of the ITU, of course.))
The Ivory Tower has become somehow even dingier, it seems.
Though we've left at dawn, with the sun's first rays highlighting the old city in full glory, the stains and crumbling patches along the tower's height are only more pronounced for it. An enormous sum of money has been reclaimed by the latest budget meetings by the Board of the Directorate to be put toward the restoration of the campus' namesake, but the estimated date of completion for these efforts numbers in the years, rather than months or weeks. In my first exchange with someone not tied to the University in several weeks, I heard the remark that some of the darkest patches closest to the tower's dilapidated top must date all the way back to the Rupture. I would scarcely be surprised if this were true.
Our party moves quickly to get the wains ready for departure, everyone but the Gertisch student being as unused to the cold as I am. Thanks to the generosity and relative bribeability of several professors not to be named, my study abroad has been furnished with three of my fellow undergraduates.
Ciudo, majoring in foreign languages and literature, shall be our interpreter during the times when Denerothi Ersuut will fail us, which I anticipated to be increasingly regular the farther south we go.
Shoring up our armament for the siege against the language barrier is or resident physician (technically only a botanist-in-training), Sarq. He is one of our precious few students of Nambarish stock, though unfortunately not of geographic origin. I must remember to inquire into the meaning and popularity of his name at a later date. I anticipate that it has its origins in the name of some folk hero, much the same way you might see ten thousand different permutations of "Haraal" walking the streets of Deneroth today.¹
Minoring in both historical ordination and Gertisch fencing, Hraela will be assisting me directly in the recording and analysis of everything we encounter leading up to and at the dig site. She has also elected to bring her training longsword with her, both to keep practicing for the semester's finals, as well as to ensure our getting along without any "man-made inconveniences" along the road. I am alarmed that Instructor Vogt has his pupils maintain their training equipment at shaving sharpness, and it is my hope that I never encounter anything which he would qualify as "battle-ready".²
We are joined by a hired retinue of ten porters, drivers, pathfinders, and other assistants from outside of the campus to ensure that we reach the Pach-Pahs in a timely fashion. What time that will be is unfortunately little more exact than the Board's estimate of Tower repairs, for the weather will play an adversarial role in our travels south.
Winter approaches Deneroth quickly. Even the Beige Trees of Citadel Grove have begun to lose their leaves in full this month, and a Denerothi winter is a wet and snowy one. But we must endure such hardships in order to reach the dig site, which is located beyond the first wave of peaks in the northern reaches of territory under supervision by the People's Anarcho-Syndicalistic Communes of Pach-Pah Yul (PASCOPPY hereafter). There, beyond the rain shadow of what we call the Near Pashels, the winter is quite dry. And in order to have an environment which is not bogged down in mud and influxes of breeding populations of Howler Ibexes, the locals must conduct their archaeological research in the dry cold.
Our wagons are just beginning to turn their wheels now, and it shall take some time and practice to get used to writing on the move. For now, I shall leave this parchment to dry and look upon the many tiers of our fair and introverted city before it is put behind us.
I feel a pang of affection for the city, and even for the University, as our path becomes set and irreversible.
Clearly I need another nip of Esgodarran Whiskey in order to wake up fully.
¹ Mind you, the total population of Deneroth is, as of last decade's census, scarcely higher than twenty thousand, to indicate the sheer inescapability of the name.
² It is a little-known fact that despite including it proudly in his resume, Professor Berchtold Vogt was never awarded the title of Éïsęnmễïster by any known or reputable school of fencing and swordsmanship in Deneroth or the sister cities of the Upper Lowlands. Nor is he known to have ever attended one.
One is a sense of bemusement born from a simultaneous gratefulness for the presence of bus wifi, and terror at an absence of bus seat belts.
The other is that I have never given sufficient thought to the importance, frequency, or severity of travel in the universe of the ITU.
Of course I have explicitly or implicitly explained the importance of movement and migration for the nomads and semi-nomads of the world, and perhaps that is in fact the norm at this time; the vast world has been disconnected for some time, with maintained roads and traveler culture long ago abandoned.
But now that a certain pasty academic has been temporarily ejected from his subscalanean office, the perfect opportunity arises for a few travelogues between now and his arrival at a certain dig site. For those of you who prefer his more researched articles, have no fear. Plenty of his parchments remain scattered upon the desk attached to his doorway, ripe for publication... after they've been sanitized of sensitive subject matter unbecoming of the publishing house of the ITU, of course.))
The Ivory Tower has become somehow even dingier, it seems.
Though we've left at dawn, with the sun's first rays highlighting the old city in full glory, the stains and crumbling patches along the tower's height are only more pronounced for it. An enormous sum of money has been reclaimed by the latest budget meetings by the Board of the Directorate to be put toward the restoration of the campus' namesake, but the estimated date of completion for these efforts numbers in the years, rather than months or weeks. In my first exchange with someone not tied to the University in several weeks, I heard the remark that some of the darkest patches closest to the tower's dilapidated top must date all the way back to the Rupture. I would scarcely be surprised if this were true.
Our party moves quickly to get the wains ready for departure, everyone but the Gertisch student being as unused to the cold as I am. Thanks to the generosity and relative bribeability of several professors not to be named, my study abroad has been furnished with three of my fellow undergraduates.
Ciudo, majoring in foreign languages and literature, shall be our interpreter during the times when Denerothi Ersuut will fail us, which I anticipated to be increasingly regular the farther south we go.
Shoring up our armament for the siege against the language barrier is or resident physician (technically only a botanist-in-training), Sarq. He is one of our precious few students of Nambarish stock, though unfortunately not of geographic origin. I must remember to inquire into the meaning and popularity of his name at a later date. I anticipate that it has its origins in the name of some folk hero, much the same way you might see ten thousand different permutations of "Haraal" walking the streets of Deneroth today.¹
Minoring in both historical ordination and Gertisch fencing, Hraela will be assisting me directly in the recording and analysis of everything we encounter leading up to and at the dig site. She has also elected to bring her training longsword with her, both to keep practicing for the semester's finals, as well as to ensure our getting along without any "man-made inconveniences" along the road. I am alarmed that Instructor Vogt has his pupils maintain their training equipment at shaving sharpness, and it is my hope that I never encounter anything which he would qualify as "battle-ready".²
We are joined by a hired retinue of ten porters, drivers, pathfinders, and other assistants from outside of the campus to ensure that we reach the Pach-Pahs in a timely fashion. What time that will be is unfortunately little more exact than the Board's estimate of Tower repairs, for the weather will play an adversarial role in our travels south.
Winter approaches Deneroth quickly. Even the Beige Trees of Citadel Grove have begun to lose their leaves in full this month, and a Denerothi winter is a wet and snowy one. But we must endure such hardships in order to reach the dig site, which is located beyond the first wave of peaks in the northern reaches of territory under supervision by the People's Anarcho-Syndicalistic Communes of Pach-Pah Yul (PASCOPPY hereafter). There, beyond the rain shadow of what we call the Near Pashels, the winter is quite dry. And in order to have an environment which is not bogged down in mud and influxes of breeding populations of Howler Ibexes, the locals must conduct their archaeological research in the dry cold.
Our wagons are just beginning to turn their wheels now, and it shall take some time and practice to get used to writing on the move. For now, I shall leave this parchment to dry and look upon the many tiers of our fair and introverted city before it is put behind us.
I feel a pang of affection for the city, and even for the University, as our path becomes set and irreversible.
Clearly I need another nip of Esgodarran Whiskey in order to wake up fully.
¹ Mind you, the total population of Deneroth is, as of last decade's census, scarcely higher than twenty thousand, to indicate the sheer inescapability of the name.
² It is a little-known fact that despite including it proudly in his resume, Professor Berchtold Vogt was never awarded the title of Éïsęnmễïster by any known or reputable school of fencing and swordsmanship in Deneroth or the sister cities of the Upper Lowlands. Nor is he known to have ever attended one.
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
A Lowlander's Gloss of the Rise & Fall of the Pach-Pah Empire, Part 5.
Click here to view Part 4 on the Pach-Pah Empire
"I call to order the 298th Grand Resolutions Council, and the 2,980th Convening of the Large and Small Workers' Assemblies!"
- Officiator Thonapa Namdol, at the most recent overlap in annual and decennial meetings between the loose governing bodies of the People's Anarcho-Syndicalistic Communes of Pach-Pah Yul, 293 AR
"RECALL DELEGATE SAMTEN TITU! GUAMANSURI FOR LARGE COUNCIL!"
- An election season leaflet from Pansech Province, circa 246 AR.
The last Miqh Pach-Pah was buried without blessing or ceremony (but also without further insult or defamation) in an undisclosed location in one of the gardens of his palace. The bodies of his advisers would hang over the broken gates for some time in cages gilt with all of the precious stones and metals which they had fostered the mining of. The empire without an emperor entered a deep and extended period of mourning and protracted activity. The Pach-Pahs vanished from international commerce and society almost entirely as they attempted to piece their homes and lives back together, to say nothing of the internal struggles of understanding who and what they now were.
With the collapse of the semi-divine cult surrounding the Miqh, those with faith shaken yet unbroken turned in greater numbers and in greater piety toward the other gods of the mountains. They threw themselves upon the mercy of the deities of right conduct and justice, and prayed for those who had been lost to the underworld. A deep, collective sense of grief, guilt, and catharsis kept them united, where once the ties of common government had done the same.
This marked the point in time when the gods of the underworld were also venerated. Prior to that, stretching as far back as the early period of Pach-Pah history, those of the deep and dark places had been feared and warded against. Evil was associated with them, and they were only appeased in an attempt to ward off misfortune. Now, the fear remained truer than ever, but it was laced with a desperate hope that those whom they had taken into their keeping were being treated well. Indeed, the living hoped that the same could be had for themselves, if a buried death awaited them in the end. the practice of digging architecture entirely below the surface was abandoned in the same decade as the Collapse, save for when a temple dedicated to the gods below needed building.
The surviving instances of nobility throughout the provinces remained in the custody of various groups of revolutionaries for some time, but further spilling of blood was out of the question, now that everyone had seemed to finally "wake up" from the illusion of bloated royalty. The memoirs of former governors and their children are well-documented in the following century, as they attempted to reintegrate with those whom they had stayed above and separate from. Progress was slow, and famine was frequent in those regions where infrastructure had been damaged the most heavily. But in their reduced state, the people of the mountains consolidated, and experienced a measure of regrowth.
Eventually the question of "what next?" was difficult to ignore. And unlike the aftermath of our own experiences of disaster, vast gulfs of distance between major players did not prevent the highlanders from achieving greater cooperation once again. In the first of many summits to come, the representatives of each former province met at the base of the peak where the ruined imperial palace once stood. With each was an entourage of representatives of each industry found in that province, for over the course of the empire's history, its people had undergone quite a significant degree of specialization into various disciplines.
The various members of each regimented form of livelihood, whether they were the heads of valley ranches or of stoneworking groups, quickly found themselves in agreement about what their respective peoples needed and wanted for the future. Of course they did not agree so readily with each other group's decisions, and bickering ensued. It was only by taking on a role of arbitration did the representatives of each province at large manage to instill a state of quiet order, from which the first rough agreements on group policy were drawn up. Each industry would work toward both representation and self-regulation, and each regional government would work together to maintain a level of cooperation and public welfare between all moving parts. "Solidarity Without Kings" became something of a rallying mantra for the Pach-Pahs.
It would be a dizzying and frankly impossible task for an indigenous expert on political history of the Pach-Pahs to produce a comprehensive and all-encompassing list of the various changes between that point and now, and being that I have neither the blood ties nor the training to do so, it would be doubly so for me to attempt. But I can say with confidence that, despite nearly three thousand years of time passing, the Pach-Pahs have maintained a remarkable degree of faithfulness to that first council's resolutions. There have been many changes, transformations, and upheavals since, with more than one Trade War or would-be monarch inflicting themselves upon the people of the mountains. But in the spirit of perpetual revolution, each of these challenges has been met, dealt with, and then spun to resemble that old precept.
Before my more aristocratic readers tear this document up in a white-knuckled rage, be aware that though they constantly push against it, hierarchy is difficult to avoid entirely within this patchwork blanket of industry-communities. Furthermore, a continued and heavy emphasis upon family lineage among all Pach-Pah groups maintains a somewhat clannish divide between larger industrial groups, as well as a fairly consistent and conservative outlook on (albeit recently-created) tradition.
This, as well as limited international trade, has occupied our southern neighbors since before our own empire was divided. All things considered, they have done remarkably well for themselves. And I dare say that we have many lessons in adaptation, damage control, and human spirit to learn from them.
On a more scholastic note, I would also like to take the opportunity to push the support for Pach-Pach archaeological research. The discipline has its roots in the mountains, yet has enjoyed relatively little adaptation to the lowlands, even in regions as fixated upon its past as the denizens of Deneroth.
It is with determined optimism that I state my recently-approved budget¹ for an expedition into the mountains to accompany one such archaeological project will generate enough northern interest in the practice that Deneroth or even Nambar may soon host their own departments of history-through-earth-sifting.
¹ The initial offer of ten pounds of electrum is barely enough to cover the costs for equipment and non-university personnel, let alone the need for transportation and lodgings over a four-month period. It was quickly expanded to twenty-five pounds once I pointed out to the treasurers' council that they and everyone else on the University's campus would be free of me for a full quarter of the year if the funding was sufficient.
"I call to order the 298th Grand Resolutions Council, and the 2,980th Convening of the Large and Small Workers' Assemblies!"
- Officiator Thonapa Namdol, at the most recent overlap in annual and decennial meetings between the loose governing bodies of the People's Anarcho-Syndicalistic Communes of Pach-Pah Yul, 293 AR
"RECALL DELEGATE SAMTEN TITU! GUAMANSURI FOR LARGE COUNCIL!"
- An election season leaflet from Pansech Province, circa 246 AR.
The last Miqh Pach-Pah was buried without blessing or ceremony (but also without further insult or defamation) in an undisclosed location in one of the gardens of his palace. The bodies of his advisers would hang over the broken gates for some time in cages gilt with all of the precious stones and metals which they had fostered the mining of. The empire without an emperor entered a deep and extended period of mourning and protracted activity. The Pach-Pahs vanished from international commerce and society almost entirely as they attempted to piece their homes and lives back together, to say nothing of the internal struggles of understanding who and what they now were.
With the collapse of the semi-divine cult surrounding the Miqh, those with faith shaken yet unbroken turned in greater numbers and in greater piety toward the other gods of the mountains. They threw themselves upon the mercy of the deities of right conduct and justice, and prayed for those who had been lost to the underworld. A deep, collective sense of grief, guilt, and catharsis kept them united, where once the ties of common government had done the same.
This marked the point in time when the gods of the underworld were also venerated. Prior to that, stretching as far back as the early period of Pach-Pah history, those of the deep and dark places had been feared and warded against. Evil was associated with them, and they were only appeased in an attempt to ward off misfortune. Now, the fear remained truer than ever, but it was laced with a desperate hope that those whom they had taken into their keeping were being treated well. Indeed, the living hoped that the same could be had for themselves, if a buried death awaited them in the end. the practice of digging architecture entirely below the surface was abandoned in the same decade as the Collapse, save for when a temple dedicated to the gods below needed building.
The surviving instances of nobility throughout the provinces remained in the custody of various groups of revolutionaries for some time, but further spilling of blood was out of the question, now that everyone had seemed to finally "wake up" from the illusion of bloated royalty. The memoirs of former governors and their children are well-documented in the following century, as they attempted to reintegrate with those whom they had stayed above and separate from. Progress was slow, and famine was frequent in those regions where infrastructure had been damaged the most heavily. But in their reduced state, the people of the mountains consolidated, and experienced a measure of regrowth.
Eventually the question of "what next?" was difficult to ignore. And unlike the aftermath of our own experiences of disaster, vast gulfs of distance between major players did not prevent the highlanders from achieving greater cooperation once again. In the first of many summits to come, the representatives of each former province met at the base of the peak where the ruined imperial palace once stood. With each was an entourage of representatives of each industry found in that province, for over the course of the empire's history, its people had undergone quite a significant degree of specialization into various disciplines.
The various members of each regimented form of livelihood, whether they were the heads of valley ranches or of stoneworking groups, quickly found themselves in agreement about what their respective peoples needed and wanted for the future. Of course they did not agree so readily with each other group's decisions, and bickering ensued. It was only by taking on a role of arbitration did the representatives of each province at large manage to instill a state of quiet order, from which the first rough agreements on group policy were drawn up. Each industry would work toward both representation and self-regulation, and each regional government would work together to maintain a level of cooperation and public welfare between all moving parts. "Solidarity Without Kings" became something of a rallying mantra for the Pach-Pahs.
It would be a dizzying and frankly impossible task for an indigenous expert on political history of the Pach-Pahs to produce a comprehensive and all-encompassing list of the various changes between that point and now, and being that I have neither the blood ties nor the training to do so, it would be doubly so for me to attempt. But I can say with confidence that, despite nearly three thousand years of time passing, the Pach-Pahs have maintained a remarkable degree of faithfulness to that first council's resolutions. There have been many changes, transformations, and upheavals since, with more than one Trade War or would-be monarch inflicting themselves upon the people of the mountains. But in the spirit of perpetual revolution, each of these challenges has been met, dealt with, and then spun to resemble that old precept.
Before my more aristocratic readers tear this document up in a white-knuckled rage, be aware that though they constantly push against it, hierarchy is difficult to avoid entirely within this patchwork blanket of industry-communities. Furthermore, a continued and heavy emphasis upon family lineage among all Pach-Pah groups maintains a somewhat clannish divide between larger industrial groups, as well as a fairly consistent and conservative outlook on (albeit recently-created) tradition.
This, as well as limited international trade, has occupied our southern neighbors since before our own empire was divided. All things considered, they have done remarkably well for themselves. And I dare say that we have many lessons in adaptation, damage control, and human spirit to learn from them.
On a more scholastic note, I would also like to take the opportunity to push the support for Pach-Pach archaeological research. The discipline has its roots in the mountains, yet has enjoyed relatively little adaptation to the lowlands, even in regions as fixated upon its past as the denizens of Deneroth.
It is with determined optimism that I state my recently-approved budget¹ for an expedition into the mountains to accompany one such archaeological project will generate enough northern interest in the practice that Deneroth or even Nambar may soon host their own departments of history-through-earth-sifting.
¹ The initial offer of ten pounds of electrum is barely enough to cover the costs for equipment and non-university personnel, let alone the need for transportation and lodgings over a four-month period. It was quickly expanded to twenty-five pounds once I pointed out to the treasurers' council that they and everyone else on the University's campus would be free of me for a full quarter of the year if the funding was sufficient.
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