World-Building Wednesday2024-03-28T17:39:17Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/tags/world-building-wednesday/D. MoonfireCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 InternationalWorld-Building - Tarsan2020-01-29T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2020/01/29/tarsan/Tarsan is one of the most significant countries in Fedran, as both the oldest established country at the time of the Mechanical War and its influence on the rest of society.
<p>Tarsan is a country located in the north-western coastal region of the continent. It borders directly against Gepaul.</p>
<p>Despite being a relatively small country, Tarsan has provided significant influence over civilization in the northern and western parts of the continent. Much of this comes from Tarsan's history as the oldest, established country on the continent.</p>
<h1>History</h1>
<h2>Countless Hills</h2>
<p>Before Tarsan was established, much of the region was known as the Countless Hills. The hills were claimed by various feuding families, clans, and tribes. Alliances were formed and broken fluidly and it was a harsh The alliances and opposition were fluid during this time with betrayal common as were short-lived treaties.</p>
<p>When Jolia invaded in 436 TSC, there was almost no organized resistance or armies capable of working together enough to defeat the invaders. The southern-most families quickly fell, either by subjugation or destruction, and it quickly looked like the entire Hills region would be conquered within a few years.</p>
<p>It wasn't until a wintry morning 19.0.437 TSC that eight families along the northern coast gathered together in what would be the first Council of Tarsan. The Kasin family was the one who made deals and treaties to make this possible since most of these families had been fighting only recently with each other. Together, these families decided to set aside their differences to fight off the invaders. Much of the following days were spent in planning to take on the initial wave of invaders.</p>
<ul>
<li>Disrobin</li>
<li>Galadir</li>
<li>Joknig</li>
<li>Kasin</li>
<li>Lamaster</li>
<li>Pun</li>
<li>Rinfir</li>
<li>Wilim</li>
</ul>
<p>However, what the Galadir family didn't know was that the other seven families were setting them up to be sacrificed as a decoy. During the first major battle, the Battle of Magdaleon, the betrayal was complete and the Galadir family was completely destroyed to give the other seven families a chance to flank and destroy the battalion of invaders.</p>
<p>Encouraged by their success, the newly formed Army of Tarsan, as it would be known, cut through the supply lines of two other Jolia battalions and began to a guerrilla attack against the invaders. These moving battles would last for close to eleven months years until the Battle of Polenus when Tarsan was able to completely cut off the Jolia invaders and collapse the Polenus Pass, the primary route from Jolia into the Countless Hills.</p>
<p>In the first battle with the invaders, the other seven families sacrificed the Galadir family in a battle that caused the complete destruction of the Galadirs and allowed the other armies to flank the invaders and defeat the first wave of invaders.</p>
<h2>Early Years</h2>
<p>After the army finished defeating the invaders, the seven families sat down at the Council of Tarsan to formally break apart. However, five of the families (excluding Pun and Joknig) decided that being banded together had given them almost complete control over the Countless Hills. The remaining two families were given an ultimatum, either permanently join into the newly formed country of Tarsan or be destroyed. They both formally accepted.</p>
<p>Using their military might, Tarsan turned their attention to the other surviving families, tribes, and clans. Even with superior force, it took them until 440 TSC until they had control over the region.</p>
<h2>Council of Tarsan</h2>
<p>Starting 0.0.441 TSC, it became a tradition that the Council of Tarsan would meet first week of the year. They would rotate the founding family that would host the council. After the somber affair of the council, the host family would then arrange celebrations throughout the city to honor Tarsan. These celebrations, over the next thousand years, would become formalized into what is now known as the Tarsan Social Season.</p>
<h1>Families</h1>
<p>Tarsan politics are organized by families, with the seven great families at the top of society and various branches and lesser families branching out through various relationships of blood and marriage.</p>
<p>Most families are patriarchal, with the eldest male becoming the head of the family. Only when there are no living males in the eldest generation will a female become head of the family. In the seven great families, they will skip a generation to avoid a female head.</p>
<p>In addition to the founding families, there are also a slew of lesser families that were either joined, subjugated, or created over the years that would follow.</p>
<ul>
<li>Pinnir</li>
<li>Tibirim</li>
<li>Xahos</li>
</ul>
<h1>Culture</h1>
<p>Tarsan culture is ritualistic from the highest ranking society members to the lowest indentured servant. The way of addressing each other, the times of day to perform various actions, and even the social calendar are all dictated by the patriarchs of the seven great families, as it has been for centuries.</p>
<h1>Timelines</h1>
<ul>
<li>0.0.436 TSC: Jolia invasion of the Countless Hills</li>
<li>19.6.436 TSC: The first Council of Tarsan</li>
<li>41.0.437 TSC: The Battle of Magdaleon</li>
<li>27.4.438 TSC: The Battle of Polenus</li>
<li>46.4.438 TSC: Establishment of Tarsan</li>
<li>35.6.440 TSC: Tarsan controls the Countless Hills</li>
<li>0.0.441 TSC: The first regular Council of Tarsan</li>
</ul>
Jogūchya - Snap the Tail2020-01-22T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2020/01/22/snap-the-tail/A Jogūchya game inspired by "Go Fish" and "Uno" that is easy to understand and play.
<p>One of my longer projects is developing a <a href="https://fedran.com/">Fedran-inspired</a> set of cards and related games for the desert culture. I haven't really gotten far on this project, mainly because I want to draw them but I burned out with the overwhelming details, but it does make a good <a href="/tags/world-building-wednesday/">World-Building Wednesday</a> post.</p>
<h1>Jogūchya</h1>
<p>Jogūchya is a deck of sixty-four cards arranged into eight ranks of eight suits. It is a deck designed to be tolerant of the vagaries of a mobile culture in that many games can be played with a half or quarter deck (to account for lost or destroyed cards) and many of the rules can be flipped so suits are ranks and the reverse.</p>
<p>The suits are: Stones, Waters, Birds, Horses, Reptiles, Packs, Insects, and Flowers. When written in English, the first letter is unique so “1R” means “one of reptiles”.</p>
<p>This was first introduced in the world in the second chapter of <a href="https://fedran.com/sand-and-ash/chapter-02/">Sand and Ash</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Three of snakes in the north, one point.” Rutejìmo tapped his card against one of the four piles before picking up the top card from the other three piles on the table.</p>
<p>“Damn, that was my three of scorpions.” Gemènyo sat with one leg in a crook and his pipe balanced on his knee. He groaned and pulled out a six of snakes and set it on the east pile. “Your turn.”</p>
<p>Rutejìmo glanced down at his cards. He only had two left, but neither would help him get another trick out of the cards on the table. Hissing through his teeth, he plucked out the card with an illustration of two rocks sticking out of a sand dune.</p>
<p>Gemènyo grinned.</p>
<p>Rutejìmo placed it on the south pile. He shuffled through the stack looking for another snake. He got through the pile before he realized he picked the wrong one. “Damn.” He grabbed a random card, the five of birds, and set it down on top of the rocks. “Your turn.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h1>Snap the Tail</h1>
<p>Snap the Tail is a rather simple game that is well-suited toward children. It doesn't require much strategy (more so with the Inescapable variant).</p>
<p><em>The inspiration for this game is “Go Fish” and "Uno."</em></p>
<p>Like most games, playing with a smaller deck allows for longer tails and therefore it is common that children play with half or quarter decks. Smaller decks also result in shorter games.</p>
<h1>Setup</h1>
<ol>
<li>Shuffle the deck face-down.</li>
<li><em>Hands</em>: Deal four cards to each player.</li>
<li><em>Well</em>: Place the remaining cards face-down to the side where everyone can draw from them.</li>
<li><em>Tail</em>: Flip the first card from the well and place it face-up in the play area.</li>
<li>The last winning player starts or dealer's choice for the first round.</li>
</ol>
<h1>Rules</h1>
<p>On a player's turn, they place a card from their hand that matches either the number or the suit of the tail. This will become the next tail card.</p>
<p>If a player cannot play a card, they announce “snap” (akīma) and the previous player gets a point. They then place down a card which becomes the new tail.</p>
<p>If the setup card results in a snap, then no one gets the point (a “drop” or gōryo) but otherwise it plays as normal including changing the new tail card.</p>
<p>The player then draws a new card to replaced their card and play continues to the next player (usually to the left).</p>
<h1>Ending</h1>
<p>Play continues until all the cards have been played out of the hands and well.</p>
<h1>Scoring</h1>
<p>At the end of the game, the player with the most points wins.</p>
<p>It is not uncommon to play multiple rounds of the game. In this case, keep a running total of points until the end of play.</p>
<p>In the case of a tie, play a game of High Up among the winning players to determine the final winner.</p>
<h1>Variations</h1>
<h2>Inescapable</h2>
<p>If a player has a card that can be played, they must play it.</p>
<h2>Drunken Dog</h2>
<p>Whenever a player gets a snap, they must take a gulp of an alcoholic drink.</p>
<h2>Helpful Hands</h2>
<p>This variant is used when the players are trading chores or duties. Instead of points, the player who gets a snap must take one of the previous player's chores or duties.</p>
<p>Usually in this variant, any player ever gets more than ten tasks ahead of anyone else is automatically kicked out of the game and their hand is shuffled into the well.</p>
World-Building - Sequels, Prequels, and Intermissions2020-01-15T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2020/01/15/sequels-prequels-intermissions/Much of my secondary stories are sequels or prequels but I rarely mix the two for a single character.
<p>While my household is mostly against Star Wars, there are a lot of things about that universe that have influenced my writing. I would say a big one is <em>Splinters of the Mind's Eye</em> by Alan Dean Foster (one of my favorite sci-fi authors). The book has an interesting history, but it also points out that George Lucas didn't really have everything planned from the beginning (the whole Luke and Leia getting <em>really</em> close to each other).</p>
<p>I'm the same way, I don't have as much planned as I hope but I'm still planning on writing a decade-long story.</p>
<p>One thing I noticed is that <a href="/blog/2019/11/27/tent-poles/">fabric</a> stories, by their nature, are of three different types: sequels, prequels, and intermissions stories. Most of these are pretty obvious except for intermission stories which are writing stories between two existing scenes.</p>
<p>I have a tendency to think about stories in both directions as I write stories. I like to know how each character got there and I enjoy doing “what if” scenarios for what happens next (you know, unless the character dies). Usually its a vague idea, little scenes, and the like that just get thrown in the garbage pile in the back of my hill.</p>
<p>So when I want to write a story related to one of them, I'm expanding on those vague ideas that I came up with.</p>
<p>Some of the character stories are almost always prequels. A good example is Karin's stories. I started with <a href="https://fedran.com/coins-for-your-troubles/">Coins for Your Troubles</a>, but then I wanted to write another story so I did a moment in life earlier called <a href="https://fedran.com/sharpening-duties/">Sharpening Duties</a>. For a recent submission, I wrote a prequel to even that called <em>Songbird in a Kitchen</em>.</p>
<p>Same with <a href="https://fedran.com/majoril/">Majoril</a> who's story started with <a href="https://fedran.com/promises-made/">Promises Made</a> which is her as a grandmother but then I wrote <a href="https://fedran.com/foxhole-duties/">Foxhole Duties</a> about her military days.</p>
<p>On the other hand, novels seem to to always be sequels. That includes <a href="https://fedran.com/sand-and-blood/">Sand and Blood</a> and the following books.</p>
<p>There are other point of views follow the same pattern of always having sequels, such as Gertrude's story starting with <a href="https://fedran.com/brick-delivery/">Brick Delivery</a> followed by <a href="https://fedran.com/brick-jam/">Brick Jam</a> and finally <a href="https://fedran.com/losing-it-brick-by-brick/">Losing it Brick By Brick</a>.</p>
<p>So far, I haven't written any series of stories that were intermixed sequels and prequels. I just end up writing in the same direction. Of course, a lot of it is following that connections away from the tent pole stories. The first story is usually related to another one and I'm either building the character up to show how they got there (such as Karin's story moving back toward her leaving her husband) or forward (Gertrude's adventures after the war).</p>
<p>Now, intermission are the hardest stories for me to write. This is a weakness of my writing style, I don't like adding stuff in the middle of the story. That applies to adding scenes in the middle of a book after I finish writing them. I suspect it's a weakness of my writing.</p>
<p>Ultimately, it's about writing stories that are connected to each other in some manner.</p>
World-Building - Telepathy2019-12-11T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2019/12/11/world-building-telepathy/Magic is a funny beast in Fedran. Using some of the concepts I got from my various religion classes in college, I decided that no one actually knows how magic works. While there are some consistent rules that are evolving as I write, no technique or system that encompasses everything. That goes for psionics also. Psychic powers is just a different form of magic, telepathy included.
<p>Magic is a funny beast in Fedran. Using some of the concepts I got from my various religion classes in college, I decided that no one actually knows how magic works. While there are some consistent rules that are evolving as I write, no technique or system that encompasses everything. That goes for psionics also. Psychic powers is just a different form of magic, telepathy included.</p>
<p>I wasn't entirely sure how telepathy was going to work until I started writing <a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/">Flight of the Scions</a>. However, over the years, I think I have refined the concept down to the same concepts in programming and Internet.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kanéko motioned for him to follow. She led him to a spot a chain distance from the fire and plopped down. “Now, teach me.”</p>
<p>Ruben sat down in front of her. He pointed to his eyes and stared into Kanéko's. “Telepathy is about memories and concepts. To communicate, you bring up a shared memory. For example, say I want to transmit the idea of looking over a cliff, I will pull up these…”</p>
<p>In Kanéko's mind, she found herself recalling the cliff where Maris fell over as she was peering over the side. The memories were bright and sharp.</p>
<p>Ruben continued. “Now, you can read. So I can also bring up letters or words.”</p>
<p>As he spoke, the words he used also appeared in Kanéko's head, but it took her more effort to focus on them. It felt like an obscure thought, one that she struggled with.</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/chapter-28/">Flight of the Scions 28</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The way Ruben describes telepathy is rather important but obscures what I consider as the underlying concept behind mental communication, Internet protocols. For example, the “shared memory” references a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identifier">URI</a> into a global memory. In modern terms, think of a URI as a website address such as <a href="https://octodon.social/@dmoonfire/102017217931449742">https://octodon.social/@dmoonfire/102017217931449742</a> which points to a common location anyone can access (the global memory, or we can call it “a social network”).</p>
<p>In world terms, the URI in the Vomen language (Volis) is a series of five-letter names. Those act as an encoded address into that shared memory:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is not,” Maris spat, “Ruben Habor!”</p>
<p>Ruben got a pained look on his face. “That was not mannerly.”</p>
<p>Kanéko glanced over at Ruben. “Your name is Ruben Habor?”</p>
<p>Maris's tail wagged back and forth as she spoke, “No, his name is Ruben Habor Kalis Bomen Tater. And I remember that much. But there are seven more names I can't.”</p>
<p>Kanéko cleared her throat. “That's a very long name.”</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/chapter-27/">Flight of the Scions 27</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the above case, the medium-length version of Ruben's name is “Ruben Habor Kalis Bomen Tater”. A full name doesn't have a limit, but there is scoping rules that let us consider just shorter names instead of a full twenty-five words or more. That is the telepathic version of a web address.</p>
<p>We could also see this as a bit of pseudo code.</p>
<pre><code>let r = uri(ruben-habor-kalis-bomen-tater);
</code></pre>
<p>The memory by itself is basically looking at a static website. You can get information, details, or even deeper information but it is unchanging and unfiltered. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, having this detail doesn't grant the ability to <em>process</em> it, which means many telepathys are know-it-alls who don't really know how to apply it.</p>
<p>To work around that, the other part of telepathic communication is the operation. This is a complex concept that we could consider the “verb” in most languages. Effectively, the operation is how we combine static concepts or memories (URIs) together to communicate.</p>
<p>A basic operation is the “intersection” operation which takes two or more memories and results in only the memories that they all have in common. We could view this as a bit of pseudo code.</p>
<pre><code>let lakeMichigan = uri(lake-michigan);
let dock = uri(large-dock);
let docksOfLakeMichigan = intersection(lakeMichigan, dock);
</code></pre>
<p>Of course, the concept of programming languages doesn't exist in Fedran, so we have this instead:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The vomen nodded. “You'll notice it is harder. Abstract ideas will always be more difficult to imagine than something personally experienced. So, what we do is we build up a set of images and memories that we both know to make it easier. So, the more we share experiences, the more I can project…”</p>
<p>A series of images, of Kanéko climbing the cliff, the fight in the inn where Kanéko dodged the men attacking her, and a picture of Damagar's eyes combined together into «climb the rock to avoid Damagar.»</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/chapter-28/">Flight of the Scions 28</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of the set operations (exclusion, union, and the like) are part of telepathy along with things like temporal sequences and combination operations. So, to tell someone to walk from their house to the store would be a time sequence pointing to the shared memory of their house, the memories of strolling down the street, and the shared memories of that store.</p>
<pre><code>let house = uri(house);
let walking = uri(walking);
let store = uri(store);
let seq = sequence(house, walking, store);
let timeSequence = temporal(seq);
return transform(timeSequence);
</code></pre>
<p>Or, in a harder to read format:</p>
<pre><code>transform(
temporal(
sequence(
uri(house),
uri(walking),
uri(store))));
</code></pre>
<p>The above bit of pseudo code is effectively Volis, the telepathic language of the Isle of Vo. It is my first language in this world but also the least documented because I'm not sure how to write it up until this point.</p>
<p>Now the biggest problem that I had with telepathy was Kanéko. She has no magic but she is adept at communicating telepathically. That is somewhat true but not entirely. She is adept at picking up the language and working with memories but she doesn't have the ability to actually communicate.</p>
<p>In effect, telepathy functions like Internet protocols. When you request a website, your browser (Firefox, Chrome) does something called a <code>GET</code> request for that page to retrieve data. When you submit a form, you usually do a <code>POST</code> operation. The data being retrieved from the server or sent to it has a special format… the language in this case.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She looked over at him, and then reached down to grab his hand. As soon as she felt the itch of his telepathy, she brought up the image of the gun. It came quickly, like with Ruben, and she focused on it. Images flashed through her head and she continued to pull the construction of the weapon, how to use it, and what it could do. The images burned through her thoughts and she used it to explode it into parts and reassemble it in her mind.</p>
<p>«Kanéko Lurkuklan, we need to discuss your manners with telepaths,» came the amused thought from Tagon.</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/chapter-42/">Flight of the Scions 43</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the above example, as soon as Kanéko “connected” to Tagon, she performed a series of <code>GET</code> operations to start retrieving data. (Not expecting her to use telepathy, Tagon didn't think he needed security so there was no login page.)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She projected a burst of an apology but continued to draw out knowledge from him. She focused on the gauge to determine its purpose. When it welled up in her mind, she smiled. The design of the gun would allow five shots but it was made by hand. That meant tiny imperfections changed how it fired the shots. The scratches on the dial must have been Sinmak’s attempt to identify the charge left in the weapon.</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/chapter-42/">Flight of the Scions 43</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The “projected a burst” was the <code>POST</code> operation I explained earlier. In effect, she submitted a form to send the apology to Tagon. This general process, at least in how I envision it is part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer">REST</a> protocol.</p>
<p>Kanéko doesn't have the ability to establish a connection (that's magic) but she has the ability to use it once it's there. That way, she still doesn't have magic (a key part of her character) but is adept at communication, visualization, and adapting.</p>
<p>Of course, most of telepathy is obscured by the narrative. The details aren't important in most cases, it just happens that telepathy is a plot-critical component in Kanéko's stories. In most cases, it is just glossed over.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When the waiter pulled himself away, he stared at a cup of coffee still on his platter. He picked it up and held it out. “Did one of you order this?”</p>
<p>An older woman came up and held out her hand.</p>
<p>Without looking, the waiter handed it gently to her and then left without a word and a quizzical look on his face.</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/prospects-of-love-among-mages/chapter-03/">Prospects of Love Among Mages 3</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, that was a somewhat long introduction to telepathy in Fedran, the introduction to my first conlang that I developed, and the underlying concepts that no one in the world will actually figure out.</p>
World-Building - Hidanork Land Magic2019-12-04T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2019/12/04/land-magic/The whole idea of the United Hidanork Tribes started with Elizabeth Moon's [The Deeds of Paksenarrion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deed_of_Paksenarrion). It was the first time I heard of the term *taig* to refer to the land itself as a distinct being capable of magic and awareness. I'm not sure about the history of the word (and my Google search isn't good enough to verify) but the idea of the taig had stuck with me ever since I read that scene.
<p>The whole idea of the United Hidanork Tribes started with Elizabeth Moon's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deed_of_Paksenarrion">The Deeds of Paksenarrion</a>. It was the first time I heard of the term <em>taig</em> to refer to the land itself as a distinct being capable of magic and awareness. I'm not sure about the history of the word (and my Google search isn't good enough to verify) but the idea of the taig had stuck with me ever since I read that scene.</p>
<p>As a country, the Hidanork are situated in the northern steppes of the continent where the weather is relatively cool. Basically on the northern-most crest of the super-continent. That also means that they would have a fair amount of wind being on the east/west line between the ocean. That means it would have a relatively short growing season with not enough energy (food) to support a long-term, non-mobile population.</p>
<p>The danger of over-harvesting or over-hunting would be the biggest concern since it would be easy to remain in a single place and run out of the food. That would require people to move around to let the land recover while they visit other places, then come back months or years later to resume the cycle. This ties into the way we harvest trees for paper in a multi-decade cycles. It also means they would focus on close-knit groups that don't grow rapidly (birth rate would be relatively close to death rate).</p>
<p>At the same time, whatever I created had to be stable in terms of surviving over generations. I'm talking years or decades of not visiting a land before a family comes back and expects it be ready to survive. This needs some way of “claiming” lands to avoid someone else from using the land before it is ready to support people again. There would be a cultural honor system that would discourage “claim hopping” as it were knowing that a group may not come back for years or even decades to verify their claims.</p>
<p>That gave me the basis for the Hidanork, a culture where they take the long view of things, sustainability is more important than getting rich quick, and a country that will struggle greatly when more capitalist folks come in and start scooping up all the “free” land.</p>
<p>(You know, colonizers from Europe. This is also going to be a major theme of phase two and three for the Hidanork with the various boundaries between countries starting to blur with the war.)</p>
<p>Because of the idea of colonization, I didn't want the Hidanork to view that they own the land. They should have more of a cooperative relationship between themselves and the land. With the idea of <a href="https://fedran.com/resonance/">resonance</a>, it seems logical that the land itself has a magical frequency that can be picked up by the Hidanork and reinforce that. This resonance/feedback would also help explain why the lands are so far away, because it needed the right combination to “click” with the right family.</p>
<p>With the long view of the culture, that would mean that a family would continue coming back to the same place over and over again, putting energy and their lives into it. Like a well-loved family cabin, the land would pick up on all that and get a character of its own. In effect, the longer a land is part of a family's taig, the more magic it gains and the more sentience or awareness it acquires. It's the memories and emotions that build the land, not the other way around.</p>
<p>This ties nicely into the existing concepts that belief makes the supernatural. Religion, the desert clan spirits, and even the Tarsan families have power because of those who believe in it. The taigs have power because of the love and care the Hidanork give it.</p>
<p>Different taigs would have different characters to them, so a family might have a special place for certain rituals or for defense (the marches will be relevant with my master story arc in that regard). In the story <a href="https://fedran.com/looking-for-the-wrong-thing/">Looking for the Wrong Thing</a>, they only had a grand moot every twenty years; that would be the result of that gathering energy (going fallow) before supporting a ritual.</p>
<p>As for identifying the taigs, I see this as more of an honor system because most family units would know that the land has already been taken. They also wouldn't try to use a land that didn't share their resonance. So, the claims would be more informational and hints than a towering fence around the land; not to mention a fence would disrupt the energies entirely.</p>
<p>I see the various families erecting a pole of sorts at the intersections of two or more of them. The family or unit that claims it would be marked on the appropriate side, like a totem with the faces identifying the owners facing the land they can communicate with. Or a street sign with arrows. There could be general guidelines for how to erect this sign point or pole, such as needing to have something reflective on top or be visible from at least a chain (66 feet) away would make it easier to find. Bright colors would also be useful so I could see it being a common theme with markers.</p>
<p>(Obviously, older markers would be less formalize and probably the newer ones would look like street markers than totems.)</p>
<p>I keep talking about families or organizations. In <em>Looking for the Wrong Thing</em>, there were two points related to that. One was that they were grouped around the mother (husband and children) and the other was the “go out and get pregnant” for the two sisters. Even with the genetic diversity of the moot babies, a family unit is just a little too small to travel long distances. I figured it would be more of a cluster of families, groups of 5-20 individuals and maybe 1-4 families, that travel together. The word “tribe” seems to work for me here, which is why I use it. However, at moots, they would go their separate ways just to get some distance, mix it up with others, and maybe decide to go with another group if things weren't working out.</p>
<p>That way, it could be a self-balancing system where a family that gets too big would lose other families traveling with them to ensure their lands could support them. Naturally, the lands claimed by the leaving family would go with that family so they would want to have more families join them to ensure a variety of places to visit. Also, if there is a natural disaster that causes a forest to burn or a lake to drain, the tribe would break apart more easily.</p>
<p>Obviously, this system is heavily favoring a matriarch. That was intended. That comes down to one comment I heard about about the bible when they follow the various families through the father. That is less reliable because most people know where the baby came from, but knowing the father is a bit less reliable (more so when you have polyamorous-friendly cultures like mine). So, the mothers are the center of families and, therefore, politics.</p>
<p>Overall, this gives me a foundation for the Hidanork, both to further develop their culture and their language (for Lexember):</p>
<ul>
<li>They take the long view of things, decades long in some cases.</li>
<li>They favor sustainability over short-term profit.</li>
<li>They value adaptability to handle fluid changes.</li>
<li>They are a matriarch.</li>
<li>They have close ties to the land for magic.</li>
<li>They use certain lands for specific purposes.</li>
</ul>
<p>One of the biggest questions is how they maintained this while bordering up against Kyōti (the desert clans) and Kormar. As I see it, the tribal lands are not desirable. They can't sustain heavy farming (short season, nasty weather) and they have a different view of land ownership because neither Kyōti or Kormar have a concept of a living land.</p>
<p>However, with phrase two, there would the natural fluxations for borders that would start to erode the Hidanork marches (the defense lands). Phase three would be part of the “life as we know has changed too much, grab everything!” green that I feel follows most wars.</p>
World-Building - Tent Pole Development2019-11-27T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2019/11/27/tent-poles/For this week's world-building post, I want to talk about tent poles. In this case, I'm not talking about the ones under a circus tent but ways of exploring the world through fiction and documentation (writing dictionary or encyclopedia entries).
<p>For this week's world-building post, I want to talk about tent poles. In this case, I'm not talking about the ones under a circus tent but ways of exploring the world through fiction and documentation (writing dictionary or encyclopedia entries).</p>
<p>Tent pole development is picking another part of the world that doesn't match the previous one and explore those differences. In my case, I started with <a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/">Flight of the Scions</a> which was set in a relatively rural area filled with forests and a biracial protagonist about to be kidnapped. When I submitted that story for eventual rejection, I decided to do a bit of world development with “just a 20k word story” about the desert because I really had no clue about Kanéko's mother's culture. I also had a cut scene where Garèo and Mioráshi talked about their own <a href="/blog/2019/11/20/magic-and-trauma/">brutal coming of ages</a> compared to Ronamar's. So, the <a href="https://fedran.com/sand-and-blood/">second “pole”</a> was to work on that contrast.</p>
<p>The third pole ended up being <a href="https://fedran.com/second-hand-dresses/">Second-Hand Dresses</a> which was <em>completely</em> different than the first two since it was about <a href="https://fedran.com/tarsan/high-society/">Tarsan High Society</a> and had nothing to do with fighting, survival, or traveling around the world.</p>
<p>The main part about setting up a new pole is that it develops the world. That's one reason I pick something different (culture, genre, country) because the entire point is not to have an entire world were everything is the same (the phrase “same-face” from art). Also, these poles have nothing to do with any other story because they are in new areas. My latest example is the short story, <a href="https://fedran.com/looking-for-the-wrong-thing/">Looking for the Wrong Thing</a> which helps establish a new country, culture, and everything else by trying to ignore how the other cultures were created.</p>
<p>The contrast are what I call fabric stories. They are associated with one of the poles and further develop concepts, riff of existing plots, and generally stretch out from the pole toward new areas of story and world. These connective stories build on each other, which is why they don't have a lot of “as everyone in the room knows” moments nor do they focus on the initial details. <em>Sand and Blood</em> has a lot more setting the scene than <a href="https://fedran.com/raging-alone/">Raging Alone</a> for that reason.</p>
<p>Another reason I like fabric stories is that they “reach” for another pole. Put together, they connect two separate poles together to show a spectrum of lives between two very different points.</p>
<p>I find setting up a new tent pole to require more thought than fabric or connective stories. There has to be a reason it's a pole, a stark difference that needs to be explored while not focusing on existing stories.</p>
<p>Both types of stories have their place. If I only write fabric stories, everything is just a riff off of existing areas and the world starts to look the same because they have the same starting point. If I only wrote pole stories, then nothing is interrelated and it creates a world that could be an entirely different setting. Together, you get a world that both has contrasting details but still binds together.</p>
World-Building - Magic and Trauma2019-11-20T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2019/11/20/magic-and-trauma/Last week, I wrote a short story called [I Will Hurt You Only Once](https://fedran.com/i-will-hurt-you-only-once/). This is a story about Gichyòbi telling his young daughter about the rite of passage into adulthood such as Rutejìmo's in [Sand and Blood](https://fedran.com/sand-and-blood/). Both of these are about how trauma affects magic in the world of [Fedran](https://fedran.com/).
<p>Last week, I wrote a short story called <a href="https://fedran.com/i-will-hurt-you-only-once/">I Will Hurt You Only Once</a>. This is a story about Gichyòbi telling his young daughter about the rite of passage into adulthood such as Rutejìmo's in <a href="https://fedran.com/sand-and-blood/">Sand and Blood</a>. Both of these are about how trauma affects magic in the world of <a href="https://fedran.com/">Fedran</a>.</p>
<p>This story is the result of pondering the nature of adulthood in Fedran including a small clip from <a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/">Flight of the Scions</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She fought more tears. Shaking her head, she gazed into Ruben's glowing eyes. “It isn't fair. I spent my entire childhood praying for the day I would manifest a talent. I remember almost drowning myself in the river because most people find their magic in times of stress. Then,” she tensed at the memory, “I found out I can never use magic. So, what happens? Your <em>sand-damned</em> girlfriend ends up finding wind magic. She has a strong talent, at least.” She gave a bitter snort, “And with my luck, she'll be a mage and have all wind magic.”</p>
<p>—<a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/chapter-21/">Flight of the Scions 21</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since <em>Flight of the Scions</em> is my inception novel in this world and drives the initial master plot, the idea of manifest power in moments of high stress has been in from the very beginning of the world.</p>
<p>One could say some of this came from White Wolf's <a href="https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Exalted">Exalted</a> which I played and ran for a number of years as part of a multi-generational game. In that game, humans have a moment where they shine (or fall) before they gain their ultimate powers.</p>
<p>I loved that moment of exaltation. I actually drew it out as part of my first campaign, the first arc was the players falling into their powers and eventually manifesting in the middle of battle. There was one player who wanted it to happen at the first sign of conflict but I wanted it to be a moment of gravity, something more than a fist fight.</p>
<p>The idea of manifesting power during puberty (effectively) also was to reduce the amount of children with magic. I did this because children have very poor self-control and morals. Frankly, I would suspect a kid with pyromancer abilities would probably set everything on fire with every tantrum and argument. So, no children with magic except under special conditions (such as the ending of <a href="https://fedran.com/sand-and-bone/">Sand and Bone</a>).</p>
<p>Mostly, it was because I don't want to write about magical tantrums.</p>
<p>So, where did the idea that trauma had any relationship to the degree of magic someone gained when they finally manifested? Well, I stumbled into that when I was trying to figure out why Rutejìmo's was so difficult and a question from a beta reader that asked why he didn't know what was going to happen.</p>
<p>That lead into this part in <em>Sand and Blood</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You've always been a lousy liar, Rutejìmo. Don't worry, they are real. I can just see them better now.”</p>
<p>“W-What are they?”</p>
<p>“I think I know.” Pidòhu smiled. “But I'm not worthy to name it.”</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/sand-and-blood/chapter-17/">Sand and Blood 17</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the threads in this novel was that Pidòhu knew they were going on a rite of passage and that knowledge meant he had to have a far more difficult time to touch his own magic. For Pidòhu to find his spirit, he had to suffer more to get to the point where it was possible.</p>
<p>Those two stories set me down the path that trauma was needed to manifest power. It wasn't until later that I realized it was tied into the survival mechanisms that I had already established as part of the clan warrior's sterility.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There was a price for her powers though, a curse that Rutejìmo couldn’t even comprehend living with. She was sterile, like all warriors, and she would never marry. The remainder of her life would focus on the clan as a whole, to protect and guide, to be a comforting shoulder, a stern teacher, and the hand of punishment. She would never retire either. It was only a matter of when she died in battle, not if.</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/sand-and-ash/chapter-03/">Sand and Ash 3</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those two things lead me down the path of why characters near the coast have considerably weaker powers. While Rutejìmo has speed magic and anti-magic while Lily in <a href="https://fedran.com/second-hand-dresses/">Second-Hand Dresses</a> could color fabric. The difference was their lives. Lily grew up in a life of comfort, Rutejìmo did not. Same with Pahim in <em>Flight of the Scions</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kanéko watched as he separated the dirt from around a seed. With a grin, Pahim closed his hands. A moment later, green leaves peeked out of his palm. A dandelion pushed up between two fingers and blossomed in a few seconds. He held out his hand. “For you.”</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/chapter-07/">Flight of the Scions 7</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>With those stories and novels, the idea that trauma and a difficult life became a measure of power. With this, I could finally (retroactively) explain why the Shimusògo where so terrible to Rutejìmo, not only treating him like shit but also keeping him “young and stupid”. It was all to maximize the trauma during the rite of passage to ensure he (and the other teenagers) get as much magic as possible.</p>
<p>The Shimusògo were always written as a relatively isolated rural clan. They had their ways because they worked but they were not even remotely “nice” because they had to look at their clan's survival instead of comfort.</p>
<p>Later, I would contrast that with the relatively more comfortable life of the Kosòbyo and also the observations Tsubàyo made in <a href="https://fedran.com/let-his-memory-go/">Let His Memory Go</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Those sun-addled assholes of the Shimusògo.” He spat out the name of the clan that he was born into. It was Rutejìmo’s clan now just as Tsubàyo was now a member of the Pabinkúe clan. Well, it would be Rutejìmo’s again if he managed to survive a year.</p>
<p>“Trauma does increase the power.”</p>
<p>“Trauma also leaves children to die in the middle of the desert. It inflicted me with nightmares for the last ten years and I still can’t get my heart away from it. Every damn day, I worry I’m going to turn into those assholes and hurt my daughter with their horse shit attitudes and obsession with destroying lives.” His voice grew sharper with every word.</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/let-his-memory-go/chapter-01/">Let His Memory Go 1</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This concept of embracing trauma and comfort weakening magic ends up being one of the major hallmarks of <a href="https://fedran.com/ideas/">phase two</a> which is the first world war of Fedran.</p>
<p>After the events of <a href="https://fedran.com/desert-child/">Desert Child</a>, Kanéko's fourth book, a number of clans will be fleeing the desert and running into the coastal areas. However, the clan warriors will still have their full array of powers against people who's civilization had weaken their powers into less aggressive purposes.</p>
<p>The resulting imbalance will be the initial flames of war because history has told us what to expect when one side with superior weapons invades another.</p>
World-Building - Creating Hissian2019-11-13T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2019/11/13/creating-hissian/So, with me writing [Looking for The Wrong Thing](https://fedran.com/looking-for-the-wrong-thing/), I realized I need to start working on the constructed language Hissian, the language spoken by the United Hidanork Tribes in the creatively named country of Hidanork.
<p>So, with me writing <a href="https://fedran.com/looking-for-the-wrong-thing/">Looking for The Wrong Thing</a>, I realized I need to start working on the constructed language Hissian, the language spoken by the United Hidanork Tribes in the creatively named country of Hidanork.</p>
<p>This is more of a process of creating the language instead of an exhaustive introduction to Hissian. The rest of this page is about taking the ideas I've written over the years and start to make them a more formal language.</p>
<h1>Existing Almanac Entries</h1>
<p>So, I've been toying with the language for a couple of years through my <a href="https://fedran.com/almanac/">almanac</a>. I only have a few phrases written down until I created more formal rules. Ideally, we can use those phrases to “bootstrap” into a more complex language instead of off-the-cuff ideas.</p>
<p>The applicable entries:</p>
<ul>
<li>A nomadic Hidanork tribe is called a “ca solidar dac asu misado” which translates to “wind-blown rocks.”</li>
<li>The blood lands (kasinador nic alies shik) are abandoned except in times of battle.</li>
<li>The central government of Hidanork is located in the river city of Gilidam fy Kiso.</li>
<li>The native language of Hidanork is Hissian. Hissian has thousands of accents but few dialects.</li>
<li>Like most languages in Fedran, Hissian does not have capital letters.</li>
<li>Most Hidanork names follow the pattern “of the tribe, given name.”</li>
</ul>
<h1>Translations</h1>
<p>So far, I have these proposed translations:</p>
<pre><code>ca solidar dac asu misado
wind-blown rocks
</code></pre>
<pre><code>kasinador nic alies shik
blood lands
</code></pre>
<h2>Wind-Blown Rocks (Family/Tribe)</h2>
<p>However, we know some languages that are a bit more verbose than English (French), so I'm sure this will be fine. So, we are going to make this work. That means we need to get “wind-blown rocks” out of <code>ca solidar dac asu misado</code>.</p>
<p><code>ca</code> is too short, so we'll ignore that for now.</p>
<p><code>solidar</code> sounds like solid, so I'm going to say this is the basic word for “rocks”.</p>
<p>Now, I have a preference for nicely broken out languages where everything is separate words, so we are going to establish a language with nouns declination and verb conjunctions. That would let us use <code>soli</code> for the base noun which is nice and short.</p>
<p>That means we need to figure out what <code>-dar</code> means. Number is a good one, so we can use the idea that this is about a family, so we can say <code>-dar</code> means “many”. So, <code>solidar</code> means “many rocks”.</p>
<p>The next big word is <code>misado</code> so that should mean “wind”. Well, we want it short so <code>misa</code> is going to be the noun and we just have to figure out what <code>-do</code> would mean. How about singular or combined? That would make <code>misado</code> mean “single wind”. That fits the family idea.</p>
<p>Since <a href="https://fedran.com/miwafu/">Miwāfu</a> is a language with particles, I think this one should be purely in word order. One of the more common ones is verb-subject-object (VSO) so that means we could say <code>ca</code> means “go” or “travel”.</p>
<p>That leaves me with <code>dac</code> and <code>asu</code>. My gut feeling is that <code>dac asu</code> has to be some way of indicating that the wind is affecting the rocks in some manner, almost a “type of” phrase or a linking clause. That seems rather long, so I'm going to make <code>dac</code> as the “of”.</p>
<p>With <code>asu</code>, we can just have sort of verb for blowing. We want to have our verb conjunctions, so that would lead into <code>as</code> meaning blow and <code>-u</code> is to say it is part of the noun phrase.</p>
<p>Putting that together, that gives me:</p>
<pre><code>ca solidar dac asu misado
[go] [rocks-many] [of] [blow] [wind-singular]
go many rocks of a single blown wind
</code></pre>
<p>This probably would get shorted in day-to-day use to <code>ca solidar</code>:</p>
<pre><code>ca solidar
[go] [rocks-many]
traveling rocks
</code></pre>
<h2>Blood Lands</h2>
<p>Now to get <code>kasinador nic alies shik</code> to mean blood lands.</p>
<p>Going with the ordering rules, that means <code>kasinador</code> means lands. It's a common word and one that's important to the culture, so that means <code>kasi</code> is “land” and we need a meaning for <code>-nador</code>.</p>
<p>This is an important idea in the culture since tribes have a number of lands they “claim” and spend their years traveling between them to hunt and harvest. The idea of lands going fallow is also important to let the energies to recover; this is the foundation of their magic system as discussed with <em>Look for the Wrong Thing</em>. We are seeing a bunch of <code>-d*</code> modifiers, so how about saying <code>-nador</code> to mean “a specific number” since a family has a very specific list of claims and it's a Big Deal to claim another land.</p>
<p>The whole idea of blood lands are ones that are left fallow for many years to enough energy to be used for emergencies or for major events. So instead of being part of the annual trip around the country, these are the fallow lands from above. So, we can say <code>nic alies shik</code> is the concept of fallow or not abandoned.</p>
<p>I'm going to use <code>nic</code> to mean “for purpose” and then we can say <code>alies shik</code> means for gathering or restoring energy with <code>alies</code> being the word for fallow or gather and <code>shik</code> for energy/magic. We can also say the Hidanork use blood and magic in the same tense, so <code>shik</code> can also mean blood (plus it sounds like a noise made by a knife in magna).</p>
<p>Since we need some way of indicating that <code>alies</code> is an adjective of <code>shik</code> and not <code>kasi</code>, we can say <code>-es</code> indicates that.</p>
<pre><code>kasinador nic alies shik
[land-specific-number] [for the purpose of] [fallow] [magic]
specific lands that are left fallow for magic
</code></pre>
<h1>Pronunciation</h1>
<p>I'm terrible at this, so I'm just going to mark based on best guess of what they should look like. I prefer to use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet">IPA</a> over the English-style. Mostly I work based on what I think it sounds right, but I would need someone much more comfortable with pronouncing things correctly and know IPA to tell me if I'm wrong.</p>
<p>IPA are enclosed by by <code>//</code> and syllables are indicated by a <code>.</code>.</p>
<p>For the sounds, I'm going to start by using a <a href="http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm">guide</a> on pronunciations for English.</p>
<ul>
<li><code>/ɔ:/</code> is the “a” in “call” or “hall”.</li>
<li><code>/æ/</code> is a harder “a” such as “cat” or “black”. This will typically be used in the beginning of words.</li>
<li><code>/ɑ:/</code> is the “a” in “arm” or “father”. I'm leaning toward this being used at the end of words.</li>
<li><code>/tʃ/</code> is the “ch” sound in “church” or “check”.</li>
<li><code>/d/</code> is “d” in “did” or “dad”.</li>
<li><code>/i:/</code> is a harder “i” like “see” or “three”.</li>
<li><code>/k/</code> is the “c” in “cat” or the end of “back”.</li>
<li><code>/l/</code> is “l” in “leg” or “little”.</li>
<li><code>/m/</code> is “m” in “man” or “lemon”.</li>
<li><code>/n/</code> is “n” in “no” or “ten”.</li>
<li><code>/oʊ/</code> is the “o” in “go” or “home”.</li>
<li><code>/s/</code> is the “s” in “see” or “sing”.</li>
<li><code>/ʃ/</code> is “sh” in “she” or “crash”.</li>
</ul>
<h1>Apparent Rules</h1>
<ul>
<li>Verb-Subject-Object order.</li>
<li>Modifiers come after the main word.</li>
<li>Nouns are declined with a suffix based on number:
<ul>
<li><code>-do</code> for a single or combined one.</li>
<li><code>-dar</code> for many of an unspecified number.</li>
<li><code>-nador</code> for many of a specific number, a closed set.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Nouns can be modified in a noun phrase with a particle:
<ul>
<li><code>dac</code> means “of type”</li>
<li><code>nic</code> means “for the purpose of”</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Verbs in a noun phrase have a suffix of <code>-u</code>.</li>
<li>Adjectives use <code>-es</code> to indicate they modify an secondary noun in a phrase.
<ul>
<li>I'm sure the rules will change based on the last letter of the word later.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h1>Apparent Words</h1>
<p>So here is the beginning of our language.</p>
<ul>
<li>ali /æ.li:/ Fallow.</li>
<li>as /æs/ <em>v.</em> Blow</li>
<li>ca /tʃæ/ <em>v.</em> Go or travel</li>
<li>dac /dɔ:k/ “of”</li>
<li>kasi /kɔ:s.i:/ <em>n.</em> Land.</li>
<li>shik /ʃi:k/ <em>n.</em> Blood or magic</li>
<li>soli /soʊl.i:/ <em>n.</em> Rocks or stones</li>
<li>misa /mi:s.ɑ:/ <em>n.</em> Wind or breeze</li>
<li>nic /ni:k/ “for the purpose of”</li>
</ul>
<h1>Next Steps</h1>
<p>Creating languages is somewhat of an art form and one I enjoy doing despite having little experience in the actual process. Mostly, I just try to fake it from things I've read.</p>
<p>It isn't until a story is posted that I consider these ideas “set in mud” with actual publication being “set in stone”. Until then, I'm willing to change things around so I hope to have a language I'm happy with by the time that happens.</p>
World-Building - Iterative Development2019-11-06T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2019/11/06/iterative-world-building/One of the first questions asked at world-building panels is "how to get started?". Starting is scary when trying to build a world intended to be used for [decades](https://fedran.com/) as opposed to a (relatively) smaller world for only a short story or two.
<p>One of the first questions asked at world-building panels is "how to get started?". Starting is scary when trying to build a world intended to be used for <a href="https://fedran.com/">decades</a> as opposed to a (relatively) smaller world for only a short story or two.</p>
<p>During the <a href="https://iowa-icon.com/">panels this weekend</a> that question came up a number of times and I had a chance to work out my thoughts.</p>
<p>One of the first things I notice is that many people create their worlds in the same manner they are taught in school. You have history, geology, physical sciences (e.g, magic for fantasy), and religion in neat little categories. You do one at a time, focusing on the topic to create something that is cool before moving to the next.</p>
<p>This works. However, I also feel that it create a disjointed components to the world. Let's use one of my favorite example: vampires. Now, I don't like vampires but they have a relatively rich genre and a fair amount of shared history so they work.</p>
<p>Authors have spent years working on the biology of vampires from how they are turned, to how they gain their powers, to even how they seduce people. We have loving details of the fangs and the blood and the scary eyes. There are lots of different variants, but it is a rich and detailed body of genre to work with.</p>
<p>Now, let's talk about religion. According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religions_and_spiritual_traditions">Wikipedia</a>, there are about 4200 religions in the world. It is safe to say, we have reams and reams of knowledge detailing those. In world-building, religions seem to be one of the lesser topics in that many authors don't go into details into how they are formed, the social and political aspects of them and the like. However, in contemporary settings (urban fiction) we can safely say there are thousands of religions on the plate.</p>
<p>In fiction, very few worlds deal with the aspects of religion with vampires. We don't have a lot of games talking about atheist vampires, Jewish vampires, or even one of the less populated religions. Actually, I'd remember reading about a Baptist vampire written down. There are a few Wiccans over the years.</p>
<p>The gist is that isolation of topics. Vampires, when written in a silo, have a large amount of genre fiction. Religion also has a large amount. The two rarely interact except at a glossed level.</p>
<p>That is one danger of developing topics in isolation. There are other examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>What are the evidence laws for dealing with mind reading? I loved that <a href="http://empoweredcomic.com/">Empowered</a> has at least a reference to Mindfuck's ability to read minds being incorrect in the Baron Womb case. When I was working for a former polygraph company, the same thing came up: polygraphs weren't reliable evidence.</li>
<li>In worlds with magical or scientific cloning, the laws of inheritance and marriage don't seem to always mesh together. Usually this in the plot, but looking at our own world, laws usually start to start getting into place relatively quickly.</li>
<li>Why don't dungeons have bathrooms? This is my favorite, but there are entire aspects of biology that don't show in fiction. Related to that: why haven't a ten thousand year-old culture not invented a way of dealing with shit.</li>
</ul>
<p>Now, no one can know everything. It is impossible to cram the full scale human invention and observations into a single person, however those silos can be “blurred” a little by working in smaller pieces and letting them interact with each other. Do religions for a day, then history, then military, then language, biology, and then back to religion. The little iterations let you tie things together in a more cohesive manner.</p>
<p>Let's use a simple example from my world. When I was working on the world's mission statement (<a href="https://fedran.com/resonance/">why have mages not taken over the world</a>), I had to figure out things like the distance of the feedback. The mages of the world knew about it for centuries, which meant it had to be baked into the culture, language, and religions.</p>
<p>That meant, there had to be laws about feedback. So jumping from magic to legal, I started to develop the concept of Felony Feedback and how the legal system would handle that. How would the laws reflect that?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Welcome back to the city, runners of Shimusògo. Have all of you been to our city before?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Then I will just remind you of the more serious rules.” The armored warrior's face didn't crack from its seriousness. “No magic of your clan is allowed within these walls. Reasons are unimportant, and your purpose is irrelevant. If you use magic, we will respond harshly and violently. Start a fight and we will simply kill every single one of you.”</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/sand-and-ash/chapter-08/">Sand and Ash 8</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Well, if you couldn't bring contrary resonance into a city, how would commerce work (legal to financial)? Well, that lead me into the idea of specialists that spent days/months/years adjusting the resonance of items to be in line with a specific city or location.</p>
<p>Then I was back to the magical system as I tried to figure out how <a href="https://fedran.com/farimons-revelation/">to make magic safe</a>. That was fun working out the ideas of shielding. Of course, that brought me also back to the legal system and they would handle this new “safer” approach, to mention how society would handle the new concept:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Viola smiled. “You hate those things.”</p>
<p>“I hate that everyone seems to think wrapping a rune in a ton of metal is going to prevent feedback. We have felony feedback laws for a reason.”</p>
<p>An itch crawled down Viola's left arm. She scratched but it burrowed deeper into her bones. With a squirm, she twisted her hand a little to ease the discomfort.</p>
<p>— <a href="https://fedran.com/prospects-of-love-among-mages/chapter-03/">Prospects of Love Among Mages 3</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is simplified from the actual process, but the main gist is not sticking with one silo such as “magic” but moving from topic to topic. This means I have notes on how religion developed around the concept of magic, the entire idea of the <a href="https://fedran.com/tarsan/family-town/">Tarsan Family Town</a>, and even why couples are engaged for a year and a day to let the resonance even out before the wedding.</p>
<p>Obviously, that means documenting everything is difficult but… that's a different topic.</p>