Girey! Looking cranky!
Girey is one of two protagonists of my fantasy romance journey series, creatively titled “Rin and Girey;” he spends most of the series cranky.
And Shiva! looking cranky!
Shiva is a background character in my webserial, http://addergoole.com, and the protagonist of her own super-secret miniseries (shh). She’s also a bit of an author-insertion.
Icons by djinni, from his most recent Free Icon Day
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| Reiassan map, with mountain ranges & 10 major cities
also the updated most-recent-border between Bithrain & Callenia and two small border settlements. |
Population, etc. notes:
Approx 540,000 sq. miles of land
Approx 328,969 sq. miles of arable farmland
Approx 164,484 sq. miles of grazing/pasture land
Population of the continent about 7.2 million, of which 10% is urban and of that 50% is in biggest 10 cities.
Divvied by city approx:
69,335 Lannamer
41,601 Ouyknan
37,441 Arran 1
35,361
32,934
31,201
28,427
27,041
24,267
22,881
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| Smaller map of Reiassan
Should be viewable! |
See notes on the map here – http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/160335.html
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| Draft map of Reiassan
showing a few major landmarks |
The borders are general “around this latitude” border markers; the border itself would be much more wiggly, following the terrain. The higher border is a historical border, when Ossulund was Eretia, but the border has moved a lot through the centuries
The line in grey down the right-center of the continent is the highest elevation of the major mountain range; the absolute highest peaks are up in the glacial area, petering down to hills by Bitrani territory.
The large river in the middle is the Velka Ree (“big river”), the dot near that is Ossulund.
Although I’m contemplating making the planet slightly smaller than Earth, right now, a degree latitude is the same as it is on Earth – approx. 69 miles (111 km). The continent is approx. 2760 miles long (4441.79 km), 518 miles (833.64 km) wide at the widest point.
Because of the very uneven terrain, travel on goatback is approx. 15 miles a day, down to 10 on the rough parts. Much of the travel is via rivers, and, since the rivers generally flow from North to South, this is part of the reason Callenia is better able to conquer Bithrain than the other way around.
Weeks!
Weeks are based on our rotation. They’re nice.
Stories with tendays bother me almost as much as stories with candlemarks and smeeps.
But calling a (for instance) 9-day span a week seems ripe for confusion.
Meep?
(not smeep, that’s different)
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/16120.html. You can comment here or there.
First: The Callanthe like bright colours, and they like to mix them. They’re hampered only by not having advanced chemical dyeing techniques. This drawing, from the Peacock King, is what they’d wear if they could manage those colours.
I was looking at Russian historical garb today, and I’ve noticed a trend: most historical clothing seems to be based on “put on layer after layer of the same basic pattern until you’re warm.” This makes sense: having a summer & winter wardrobe separate of one another is expensive.
Clothing and status:
So the side the shirts close on indicates skilled worker vs. unskilled labor.
Fabric would also be an indication of status: silk is expensive in any world.
Add on to that pants. I’m thinking that pants are worn by those for whom long skirts would get in the way – those who ride, and those who labor manually. So an emperor and a farmer might wear very similar outfits, but the emperor’s silk tunic closes over the right shoulder, and the farmer’s hemp tunic over the left.
I’m still up in the air on embroidery/beading/etc. And hats! Hats are great for warmth. But. I don’t see the modesty issue coming up in quite the same way. I <3 beanies, but if I go with them, we hearken back more and more to China.
ETA: Terminology! Turkish, modern English, any one of the medieval European? Is it a kirtle or a cote or a qipao or a tunica or a liene or a…?
ETA: Qitari.
ETA: Neat site on qipao http://qipao.info/
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1261.html. You can comment here or there.
I do believe I’m going to move the worldbuilding of Reiassan over to the dreamwidth, to avoid filling up this page with it.
Objections?
The magic in Reiassan parallels the deities. Loosely, it’s divided thus:
Red: War, blood, fire, strength, anger (destruction)
Green: Life, fertility, healing, plants, earth (creation)
Blue: Mind, air, water, breath (chaos)
Very little determined about these so far, but I know:
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/763.html. You can comment here or there.
Also? I have a dreamwidth account now.
Note one: GOATS! Evolved bigger to begin with, and then bred to be riding-sized. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markhor is a good size-idea, but they’re bigger than that, even, the size of small ponies
Second-smallest unit of currency will be what can buy a pound of wheat. Money is (easily available metal) set with semi-precious and precious stones, the Tien, the Vieg, the Rei, and the High Tien/Vieg/Rei.
Twitter notes on inheritance & gender
Well, under Empress Grandma, the country had a major renaissance of innovation: a blue dynasty. Emperor Now~~~is a Red dynasty, very warlike, using Grandma’s infrastructure to conquer the Southern People. Buuut because of the ~~way inheritance works, Empress Grandma’s time was a very restrictive time for women, while Emp.Now is not.
The 1st-of-1st, 3rd-of-3rd, 9th-of-9th etc. child-of-child, of Gender Opposite Monarch, are heirs. I.e.~~~~Emp.Now’s 1st daughter’s 1st daughter, his 3rd daughter’s 3rd daughter. He was Grandma’s 9th son’s 9th son.
Inheritance by the women’s lines doesn’t require knowing who the father is, thus less sequestering of mothers.