Originally posted on Patreon in June 2018 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
It’s World-Building June!  So I’m building Worlds! Here on Patreon, I’m building “Aerax”, the world of Expectant Woods. Over on WordPress, I’m working on Bear Empire, the world of the so-named story, and a new thing called United Space. 

And it’s also June World-Building!  So I’m shifting over to Inspector Caracal’s questions, but as I already had a few (a week) written on the first set, there’s some overlap. (and I skipped question six on the “Official” list). 

🌋

Day 7 World-Building June

How does the economy work in your world? What sorts of currencies do they use?

Above: On the islands, there are four different currencies, depending on the islands you are on.

All of them are based on the very small amount of rare metals that were available when the islands rose, all of which (except in the far-mountainward islands) is illegal to own privately.

Most money is based on promissory notes, that is, the government of this island or that promises to pay you X amount of gold, should it ever be legal to own it.

The far-mountainward islands combine gold currency with their own paper currency, but usually trade with outsiders in the Aerax (central) or Academic currencies.  They like keeping their own money right where it is.

Below: The Candlemar use mostly charms, small pieces left over from the ruin of their world and new ones crafted by a very elite class of people.  The other two tribe will accept these as currency, because they have an understood value that stays the same.

The Hechinger use very old coins, salvaged and scavenged from the time before.  When a coin becomes too worn, it is melted down and reforged into a New-Coin, a piece with the Hechinger city on one side and the face of one of their founders on the other side.

Aulerions deal in links of gold, silver, and yusponior (Yoson), a metal heavily imbued with magic and not at all seen above.  Their currency is worn in jewelry form or hung from their tents and permanent homes.

These three tribes (at one point Cartwright says “and so on;” I believe the other tribes live to the other side of the mountains and to the far south, past the Aulerons and the Hechinger) trade fairly willingly between each other’s currencies, as each of them have their own areas of specialty and items the other two want.  The Aulerons have the best fabrics; the Hechinger have the best gadgets, the Candlemar have the best carvings, and so on.

🏝️

Day 7 Inspector Caracal’s June World Building

7- What kind of wild and domesticated animals live there? Are there many types or only a few?

The life on the islands above is quite limited, and there are few wild animals – a couple small herds of gazelle, some rodents and lizards and other very small creatures, and birds, the only creatures which move between the sky islands and the land below.

(Except Nimbus).

Domesticated animals up above are either small in number – very few cattle – or small in scale – pygmy goats, tiny pigs – and farmed in creative ways, since space is at a premium.

There are some “pet” animals but they are mostly lizards or small cats.  Homes are not generally large enough to support large dogs, except on farms.

Down below, there are very few domesticated animals in most places – the Hechinger and the Aulerons have some cattle; most of them have dogs of some sort – but the sheer variety of wildlife is overwhelming.  There are any number of creatures which have been changed by the magic – the fooxin, listed below, is one of those – and no longer have more than a superficial resemblance to the animal that they were before.

Creatures which have already appeared in the stories include:

Lenu – the adorable kind of creature, fuzzy, and with big eyes, sitting in a small shaft of sunlight eating a stalk of some local plant. (they chitter)

Caz-wolves  cazzar-en-ai, those are big wolf-like creatures, they have eyes like that as well, that seem to glow in the faintest light.

Fooxin – It was bigger than all three of them together, with mottled stripes in brown and black and tall, foxlike ears

tiny, obnoxious biting bugs

(bat?) with a great flapping and screeching, something flew out of the house at them.

Honha: A tiny creature, barely fitting in the palm of his hand, with stripes of orange and white. …very sharp teeth, but didn’t bite.  They make a noxious smell when irritated; its skin was smooth, as long as you moved in the direction of its spine and not to either side… strange prickly fur.

Hezzai-ai: Lizards – black with yellow eye-spots, some with green and some with red spots: The Hechinger call them Hell’s-Eyes, ah, that’s hezzai-ai

Gazelles on the islands.