Not an Exercise Tonight

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Here is a distant place within myself
In which I choose to travel
A tiny sliver of finite among forever.

If you do not understand the nature of the world
Understand the nature of its designers
Creatures with a beginning but no end
Uprooting the raw world and propping it up
To make unto themselves houses.

Trithofar is an unstable world
In the hands of children.

You ask me if the evil ones will ever change
How long must a loved one ask you
Before you will change your mind
And abandon your father's ways?

How many cataclysms must pass to convince you
What you spent a thousand years dreaming
Was nothing more than a wisp of whim.

It is this that makes the races what they are
And broader still the creation goes.
Further and further out, up and down until
Up is down again.

You ask me why the races are as they are?
Why here is gremlin-like,
There is rat.
Here is dragon
There is goblin
And one is dog, and one is tall and broad
One like fox or squirrel,
Another like serpent.
It is because the gods cannot decide what the soul should look like.
Here is beauty, there is ugly
Here is grace, there is awkward
Which pet would you choose to kill to preserve the others?
Which do you offer as sacrifice
That you've raised up from whelp
And nurtured at your bosom like mother's first?

Which child do you side with to say art is there
Better and above and higher than all other sculpture?  

And so my children create,
They weave their threads inwards and make a tapestry
But none do know just what the pattern,
Where the colors go.

They splash paint across a barren landscape,
And I find pleasure in the colors on their hands.

They whisper words to one another
Squabbling children, squabbling on,
And one a doll makes
And later shares.

This is the nature of the universe.
This is your world, in which you have been put
A distant corner of my everlasting
A single leaf in an orchard across the horizon

One of my children gives you breath
One bone, another flesh, another pigment.
One pulled the hair up from your scalp,
Along your arms and body.

A child walked behind you, a sibling set to watch you,
To steady you in your first steps.
Now a child inspires you to learning,
While another seeks your way.

And each one of them fingers, each one of them hands,
What power you have to rise up and scream to the sky
And ask these questions,
Your words are made of my children,
Riding upon the backs of others.

My children will listen when you talk to them, too,
And they will listen to voices like yours,
Like-minded.
And others will hear still other voices.

And these will make this world, and remake it.

Now you have asked for guidance,
You have heard it.
Whispered to you like a new wife's first words before sleeping
In the first night's marriage bed.

There is magic in the whispering to the children,
There is power in how they are guided, what they're set to do.
Everything rides inside them
Everything is in their hands.

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I have just finished watching Inception, and was pondering that, when I started contemplating more and more some things about Trithofar.  As with any movie or book that blows my mind, and like any writer worth his/her salt, I wondered what I might borrow or steal from it, so like an idea like a virus I sort of stumbled into this poem.

I had been toying with the idea of how Trithofar has magic and yet could possibly support a Christian mindset and still have the 'gods' and etc.

I have also been toying with the idea of writing a central epic of the world in poetic form (which I am still debating).  One of the key figures of that central mythos is the idea of Willeonis Treborrin, the Bringer of Magic.  Willeonis Treborrin was a hunter and mef wrangler in Southern Allorinia, north of Frosomia (where Drinna takes place).  He was not from Drod, nor did he grow up with the same prejudices that many kunjels feel for Droddies, because he was never a slave in Drod.


He met with a strange man in the wilderness, who many Trithofarian scholars believe was, for all intents and purposes, God.  This figure is called the Father, the Traveler, the Creator, the Highest, the Counselor, and other many names, depending on the culture that discusses him.  Many cultures around Trithofar figure this character into their own culture's mythology and make of him a position of highest authority and highest cosmological esteem.

The Kinto-Shah call him Kri-Nao-Kundroa or a form of this person, who enters and walks among and impregnates Kri-Uru-Kundroa (the mother goddess) with whom he is one, and they believe he stops and starts time where he likes.

The Kunjels call this figure The Highest or The All Father or The Grandfather or The Creator (meaning he owns the property, so to speak).  Some of them still try to call him the Protector, though most Trithofar-born kunjels do not believe he is The Protector, though some do think the Protector is what the Creator became after he finished Creating.  This is especially true of Kunjels who leave Frosomia and travel abroad and encounter churches founded in honor of Willeonis Treborrin.

Many humans feature this figure very prominently into their mythology as the source god, or the first god, the Divine Dragon (meaning this is the Dragon who created the everything).  Some feature this figure as something akin to a Titan on Earth, a god so far elevated that ideas of morality and right and wrong are as alien to him as the doings of two warring ant mounds would be to us.

The elves consider this to be first deity Aeos who allowed the rest to grow upon him, like a beast that suffers fleas to survive when he knows how to get rid of them.

The point is that this mysterious figure teaches Willeonis magic, and touches briefly on the nature of the cosmos in conversations with Willeonis.  I have thought of several ideas about how I would handle the Epic of Leor, and I think this poem may be a part of it and may explain some things about the nature of Trithofar.

Excercise 7, No 8

Exercise 8 out of the book, seven for me

Again, since this is my thingy, I'm skipping exercise 7, at least for now.  I may come back to it, though.  I'm skipping it because it is basically just another way of looking at Exercise 6.  I want to vary my writing through this practice, so I'm skipping to Exercise 8, which is called Third to First, where I take a part of an older story and change it to first/third person, depending on what it was before.  We'll see how this goes.

Stipulations:
I am supposed to count the number of he/she/its I have in the piece and reduce that number by half at least.  I'll try and reduce it as much as possible.
500 words (which really should be no problem).

I'm going to try and rewrite it in first person and reduce the use of "he" and "I" at the same time.  It is a formatting nightmare to try the prescribed way, and this is why I am late in doing it.
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THE ORIGINAL PASSAGE


"What is the order of healing?" the Mercy asked Ke-Gyelem suddenly.  Ke had been organizing her materials in her pack on the back of the wagon when her master demanded her attention.  The other slaves looked up at her and the master, their ears attentive.  The only sounds were the gentle grumbles of the wagon and the hissing, gentle sliding of the giant reptilian korrig pulling them along through the Sea of Grass.  Though Ke had not really paid attention, the gently rolling, grass-covered hills were quite beautiful, blazing in yellow and orange, blue and white.

Ik-Vumyá, who was the Mercy for the Lar-Kirthoa Knight Order of the Unbending Trees was nearly gray all over now, gray streaked with brown, like dirt and ice. It used to be the opposite, but the war with the Kunjels in the north had taxed him.  He gave up his color keeping these soldiers alive.  His teeth were yellow and exceptionally long and sharp, good for cutting, and one of his eyes was clouded over from an explosion from 'meddling with some kinds of salts' he said.  Now, he glared at young Ke with his good eye, and his ears were flipped up and facing forward like sun-craving lilies.
 
"We separate out the wounded into the four categories: those who will die before we can help them; those who may die, unless we help them; those who can live with help; and those who will live no matter what."

"In what order do we treat the warriors and with which resources?"

"Only the Lar-Kirthoa get the Garaya and the Uth-Krilaya.  We try to save the officers of the houses next.  Then, we do what we can for the slaveborn soldiers."

The Mercy nodded a little.  He glanced down at her pack.  "What do you have in your pack?"

"Ten feet of gauze; surgical tools: spider-silk thread, six different needles of six different sizes, snips, scalpel, earbone tweezers, depressor, and bone hatchet."

"Where are your diagrams?"

"Oh, here, master," she reached into her pocket for the three little scrolls.  "One for kunjels, one for kinto-shah, and one for humans."  She showed them to him, letting them rest in the palm of her hand like three little insects.

"Where are the rage glands on a kunjel?" The Mercy asked, betraying no evidence that he was impressed with what she'd said so far.

"Just above and slightly behind the collarbones."

She didn't dare try to open the appropriate scroll.  The scrolls were for studying in a quiet moment, like the books back in the guild.  He would hit her on the head if she tried to look at them now.  You had to know things, deep inside, before the battle began.

"Ash-Norá," he said to another slave sitting nearby, a male.  "What is the name of...."

Ke could look back into her things now.  The Mercy was done with her for the moment.  She noticed, though, her hands shaking slightly as she pointlessly reorganized her pack again.  The Mercy was a severe old sho, a true student of KRI-THU-HALÁL (Formerly Kri-Thu-Yenoro), the knife-bearing kinto-shah god of death as well as healing.

Ke rubbed her hands together and tried to readjust her position on the wagon.  Ahead, over the frog-like head of the korrig, Ke could see the backs of the armored Lar-Kirthoa riding their own korrigs, with their squires and slaves marching along or mounted beside and behind.  The caravan was just now topping a hill and the wagon slowly crept upwards like a great lumbering tortoise.

Ke found herself having to lean forward a bit, but it gave her a great view of the back of the caravan.  The Mercy was perched on his own big pillow in the wagon, but his slaves did not get such treatment.  They had to use their cloaks or their clothing they carried along as their own seats.  Behind them came the food supplies and the wagons bearing the idols to the various gods appropriate for war, each on its own litter with colorful pagodas to house the gods.  Kri-Thu-Halál's pagoda was directly behind the Mercy's wagon, white with red stripes.  The god himself was represented by a statue to Kri-Thu, the Great Gray Rat, holding his signature knife: one side of the blade serrated, the other smooth.  At his feet were dead twigs and animal bones.  __We haven't even seen battle yet, and already death surrounds us__.



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"What is the order of healing?" the Mercy asked me suddenly, while I was organizing my materials for what may have been the third time.  The other slaves watched, their ears turned towards me.  The only sounds now were the gentle grumbles of the wagon and the hissing, gentle sliding of the giant reptilian korrigs pulling them through the Sea of Grass.  The beauty of the Sea of Grass, even this poisoned place we traveled through just now, was a dangerous distraction and almost cost a great deal.

Ik-Vumyá, the Mercy for the Lar-Kirthoa Knight Order of the Unbending Trees was nearly gray all over now, gray streaked with brown, like dirt and ice. It used to be the opposite, but the war with the Kunjels in the north taxed everyone.  Much of his color was spent keeping soldiers alive.  His front teeth were yellow and exceptionally long and sharp, good for cutting and tearing.  One eye was clouded over; an accident after 'meddling with salts' he said, and a painful reminder of the dangers of fooling around.  Now, he glared at me with both ears and eye.

The Mercy perched on his own big pillow in the wagon, a silk thing like what would hold a lovely gem off the ground.  The rest of the slaves found that cloaks or extra clothing would suffice as a barricade against the uncomfortable boards of the wagon.
 
"We separate out the wounded into the four categories: those who will die before we can help; those who may die, unless we help; those who can live with help; and those who will live no matter what."

"In what order do we treat the warriors and with which resources?"

"Only the Lar-Kirthoa get the Garaya and the Uth-Krilaya, and Lar-Kirthoa always get magical healing before any others, in order of rank.  We try to save the officers of the houses next and the house soldiers after that.  Then, we do what we can for the slaveborn soldiers."

The Mercy nodded a little and glanced at my pack.  "What do you have in your pack?"

"Ten feet of gauze; surgical tools: spider-silk thread, six different needles of six different sizes, snips, scalpel, earbone tweezers, depressor, and bone hatchet."

"Where are your diagrams?"

"Oh, here, master," quickly, I brought them from my pocket and held them out.  "One for kunjels, one for kinto-shah, and one for humans."  They rested in the palm of my hand like little insects, waiting to jump, three little scrolls.

"Where are the rage glands on a kunjel?" The Mercy asked, betraying no evidence of being impressed with anything said so far.

"Just above and slightly behind the collarbones."

I didn't dare try to open the appropriate scroll.  The scrolls were for studying in a quiet moment, like the books back in the guild.  The penalty for not having studied and drilled and swallowed the knowledge was a beating.  You had to know things, deep inside, before the battle began.

"Ash-Norá,"  The cloudy eye sought out another slave in the wagon.  "What is the name of...."

The Mercy was done with me for the moment.  My hands shook slightly as I pointlessly reorganized my pack again.  The Mercy was a severe old sho, a true student of KRI-THU-HALÁL, the knife-bearing kinto-shah god of death and healing.  Stupidity was death.  Knowledge was life.  Anything in between was often pain.

Ahead, the armored Lar-Kirthoa rode on their own korrigs.  Around them, their weapon bearers, loosely armored and pushing through the poisoned Lake of Fire's poisoned grasses with thick leather aprons on.  The caravan just now topped a hill and the wagon slowly crept upwards like a great lumbering tortoise.  My heart fluttered as though something grand waited beyond each next hill.  A dangerous way to think, to anticipate each new hill, but hard to choke back and keep down in the stomach.

It felt as though the caravan were about to climb straight upwards, and it grew necessary to lean forward or risk rolling out the back of a wagon.  My hand instinctively went to my pack and shut it.

Behind the armored knights and the red and white Mercy slave wagons came the food supply wagons, groaning under their barrels and boxes, and the wagons with the idols to the various gods appropriate for war, each on its own litter with colorful pagodas to house the gods.  Kri-Thu-Halál's pagoda was directly behind the Mercy's wagon, with its gray curtains.  The god himself was represented by the typical statue, the Great Gray Rat, holding his signature knife: one side serrated, the other smooth and sharp.  At his feet were dead twigs and animal bones, the things he left behind often.  We haven't even seen battle yet, and already death surrounds us.


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I really didn't like this activity.  I see the benefit of doing it, but it seems like a repeat of another activity I already did.  I like some of the editing I did, but really that's all it was: editing.  I might return to this story, but probably won't make it first person from third.  It's too long to go back and redo it that way.  I realize that I really do need to do more here with this though and put a bit more description in.  I like the premise of this story, but I need a bit more development of the scenario.  Where it went was kind of out of control, but I think there's a real story here.

Exercise 6: The Royal We

Exercise 6: Write a First Person plural narrative of an event from the POV of a very close-knit couple, or group (I'm adding that last part).  Do not use the first person pronoun "I" at all.

Stipulations:
The personal pronoun "I" is not allowed at all, not even twice.  It should be impossible to distinguish who is telling the story.  Again, I am left to assume that I can use the pronoun "me" or "my."  I will try not to do so, but it is left in the air.  Supposed to be 600 words.

Hmmm, I've been doing a lot of monster hunter stuff as well as stuff about the undead.  I think I'll do something else maybe.  I had an idea about an elf creature that could talk to the dead (non-Trithofar), and I'm wondering if this would be a good chance to resurrect that idea (pun sort of intended), but then again I am tired of the undead stuff.

Perhaps this would be a good opportunity to flesh out some ideas I've had about elves.  As Will has pointed out to me a number of times: "Why do things have to be balanced in a fantasy world?"  Yet, I don't want one race to completely and utterly dominate the others, AND I don't want to get stuck in the trope of every race having a slave thing.  For instance, Kunjels have the gremlins, Kinto-shah actually have slaves, and Elves potentially have Elflings.  This makes a sort of one trick pony thing appear in my work that I don't like.  And yet, I wonder if there must be always a group of people designated the slaves of another.  Perhaps this is an undeniable theme of life: that human beings will always, for lack of a more precise term, 'enslave' something to work for them.  Could we survive in this world without, say dogs.  Would we have come as far in our world if we had not domesticated and trained horses?  Must there always be a thinking class and a working class?  After all, even the enlightened British Empire had such a divergence among people.  The servants or the lower classes were subservient by social decree to the nobility or the bourgeois.  Don't know.

What this has to do with Trithofar is the notion of the Elflings, where Elfling children are born as sort of a psychic part of their parents.  They are VERY closely connected to the person with whom they are bonded, like pets more than people.  They are smaller, but very strong, and again the Kunjels have gremlins that do about the same sorts of things, but are much dumber.  The difference of course is that unlike gremlins, the elflings can be engendered, so that they can become full-grown elves.  However, if not engendered, they die.

The difficulty with writing this kind of thing is that I've lost a child, and I know how horrible a thing that is.  The elves are going to have to have a certain degree of intense callousness about their children to allow them to just die when the time comes.  But then again, the parents do not always raise their own young, and instead give them up to the Orderesses and Sortresses to determine their fate.

Anyway, thinking about this makes me want to rethink the story of Raliiren, a character we played when I role-played with my friends.  I think I will write about him here and now, because this will not be a story of the undead, but a story about something a bit more happy.

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We are in the big room again, the room of toys we call it.  We all enjoy this room, though mother seems to tire of it quickly.  We are allowed to disperse.  In fact, mother signals for us to go away from her and to play, and while we like to play, we are not often far from mother.  Mother stands and talks open-mouthed for a while with another non-mother.  Her words are like the river gurgling among the rocks, or like the sounds birds make.  We are signaled not to pay attention to what she says just then, and we don't.  Instead, the urge to play rises inside of us.

We meet with others like ourselves.  We tussle and jump about.  One of us is chased into the limbs of a handmade tree, and we run about through all manner of fun things as though we were running on the roads.  A few of us are sitting down and examining some of the toys.  Most of us who have just arrived are not interested in the tree toy.

We go over and look at my favorite toys, the ones that make noise.  Sometimes we sit with mother and make noises together and she smiles so long as we make the noises she likes to hear.  She rewards us with sweetness and pleasant feelings and we try even harder to make those noises she wants.  She tells us this is music, these noises we are making, and she lets us play with certain specific toys.  Sometimes she works with one or two of us together, and other times she works with all of us together, and she tells us we must only make good music, and not bad music.  She sends signals to us about what that means, good music, and other times, she scents for us to pay very close attention to what she does with her fingers.  We watch intently, and all the rest of the world leaves us, and her fingers jump along strings.  We are reminded of spiders building their webs, and we are reminded of other non-mothers who weave things, weave clothes to wear, and we are reminded of the sounds of birds and the sounds of rivers in rocks, and she scents to us reminders of the winds through the tree tops, and all sorts of sounds that we like to hear.  The smells of pay attention surround us, and she tells us that music is sounds people wish to hear.

We are now playing with some of the musical toys.  Another non-mother is watching us, scenting at us to be careful with these things, but we already know to be careful.  A sibling is near and is playing with a thing called a drum, while another is toying with a stringed lute, like mother plays for us and lets us play, too.  Just now in my hands is a harp.  We are not playing what we normally play, but it is well.  The non-mother is playing something like a lute, and scenting to pay attention.  The non-mother's scents are not as strong as mother's, but we heed them.  The non-mother plays, and asks us to join, but she scents that we are not to imitate, but to do something different.  We are to add, to support, to join.  We try to make right noises.  We try to play as instructed, but it is difficult.  Many times, the non-mother flashes anger in his middle eyes or a corrective scent is spread among us, a scent that we are supposed to change, to shift, a smell that shows which of us is wrong.  The eyes are more for direct instruction, while the smell is to reach us all, to tell us to pay attention to what each other is doing and to adjust ourselves.  The non-mother does not have to speak.  He catches our attention, each in turn, and tells us each what to change with his eyes and his bearing, how to adjust through merely a twitch of himself.  It is as though he were playing through our hands, as though he were playing our instruments all at once.  With guilt we all think he is better at guiding us than is mother, and we strive to pay closer attention to him.

In time, mother retrieves us.  She rewards us with very pleasant following smells and flashes of beauty from her eyes.  We are hers again, and we are taken to a new place.  She separates us away from one another, and now we, two of us, are facing each other with swords in hands.  These are not real swords, but toy ones, like we are used to playing with, but something is different.  We are made to feel different than usual.  Now, we feel nervous, hostile.  We face each other, one of my siblings and me, and we are made to feel angry.  We are made to feel very angry, not just angry, but angry with each other.  All at once, we hate each other.  We must kill each other.  We have swords in our hands and now we are enemies.

We fight.  We have neither of us ever actually fought with another before.  It is a terrible thing to fight.  We are filled with hatred and anger and it makes us hurt inside.  Like pain, but not like pain.  It fills us.  It makes us both feel we will not be well again until we have tasted the other's blood, until we have made each other hurt worse than we do.  We hit each other with the stick-swords, and we both hurt, and yet we both try to hurt more.  We notice our wounds, but we fight on.  We will kill.  We will kill.  We will kill.

And then it is over, and soothing smells are among us and stopping us from fighting.  We are calm again.  The voices of the non-mothers watching over us are calming and stop us from fighting.  We are letting go of each other.  We are giving our swords back to the non-mother who guided us.  We are looking at each other's bodies and seeing blood and bruises and now we are helping each other to put on bandages on each other.  We are touching each other's bodies and noting the pain when we touch each other's wounds.  The other sibling is hurt more.  The other sibling has more wounds.

The non-mother, who has blue hair and bright blue eyes is pleased with us.  He says that we show promise, and he thinks we should train more with swords.  We will.

We are brought back to mother.  She calls to us, and we listen and we go back to her.  We gather around her, and she remarks at our wounds.

"It is merely training," my sibling pronounces, good with words.  We are both the best at words among the siblings of mother.  Mother has said so.  We are the best with words, and we are the best with fighting, she has said, and we are very good with making music.  We learn very fast.  She promises that we will grow.

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Hmmm, I liked this exercise.  It seems that I like the challenge of not using "I" so much.  It makes me have to bend my words around and makes me have to think more cleverly.  I will attempt, in future, to use that pronoun less in my writing, as often as possible.  Obviously, here, it has not yet been put into motion, but hopefully, in time, the word can be eliminated from my style in such a way to make me a better writer.  (See, I did it there, and it already makes me sound more sophisticated).

As for the Elfling thing...Well, it is difficult to say just how this might affect a growing being to be so carefully and exclusively guided by someone.  Elves would not have what human beings would know as a normal childhood, but perhaps that is good.  Definitely, to make this not something awful, elves would have to live a bit longer than other races.  No, I"m not talking about forever, but a bit longer than humans.  Otherwise, their infancy would take up a greater time of their life.

Then again, they are not stupid, nor completely without the ability to work, just not independent.

An unbonded elfling would have a VERY difficult time, though.  They would merely do whatever it was they would do naturally.  I am still debating just how helpless an unbonded elfling would be, or how helpless they become when they lose sight and smell of their mother figure.  Perhaps they become rather disruly and even dangerous, rather like unguided teenagers of our own world.  However, I am thinking that as the elfling grows more and more, and is allowed to grow more and more, they develop a certain degree of personality. Whereas, while they are very young and vulnerable, they are almost ENTIRELY controlled by the mother/father that is put over them.  An older one starts to see a new independence and a bit of difficulty to control.  Hmmm.

It is okay to have strange things.  I am wondering if I should differentiate males and female elves even further.  I have debated for a long time whether or not to give elves wings.  When I have elves appear in a published thing, then there will be some canon.

I know that elflings among the T'wii are different.  The elflings are part animals, having been semi-engendered by eating animal meat.  When they are finally completed, they will keep a certain look to them like the animal that they were given to eat.  This animal feature continues to guide their thinking and their nature even in adult hood.  Anyway, it is a puzzle to me.

Would love to see or read commentary on what people think.

J. Gullage



  

Skipping to Exercise 5

I am skipping exercise 4 because, in doing exercise 3, I already did it.  In Exercise 4, it asks me to write about a person so unstable in his thoughts that he shifts from first person narration to third person narration.  Basically, the idea of being unstable as a narrator such that we interchange.  However, my narrator from Exercise 3 was undergoing a transition from being a healthy, normal human being to becoming a madman.  Therefore, I contend that I have already done this.

Exercise 5: Journalism.  Write part of a story in the form of journal entries.  Everything that happens will most likely happen between the entries.  Make sure your readers can see the events offstage, but also present your journalist's blind spots.

Stipulations: The rules stipulate to keep the entries rather close together and to write fiction, not journalism.  This means to me that i have to have the journalist's voice shine through.  Furthermore, I have to have a situation where the journalist can write.  Not sure what that will be.

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Day 25
It is simply amazing what you find when you are not looking for it.  While searching the cursed northern trails for the undead, and it is precisely the undead, which we have not seen.  Nature seems to know when you are not looking for something and particularly if you are not interested in her best features, and so she brings out her absolute best to adorn herself with, even in a place known for being filled with absolute disinterest.  We set out nearly a month ago from Sarkoshia, and so far, we have met with very little of concern.  Even the passage through enemy Morrigar was not a difficult one, and given our magical implements, we were not harassed much.

Morrigar is so eager for legitimate trade, they are almost willing to call it anyone or anything within sight.  It was obvious we were neither Xomirian, nor Elcherusian, despite what our papers said.  Our accents betrayed us immediately for a rather motley, mixed crew, but even so, that should have been a great signal for someone we were not from one of these friendlier nations to Morrigar.  I feel that Morrigar begrudges its shaky, yet necessary, allegiances with Sarkoshia, and only checks so much.

We met a fellow, a Harbor Master perhaps, in Port Okabbis, a snarling, sprawling city that infects the coastline like a rat plague, fronting the rest of the world east of it with a face made of flimsy, clapboard and frayed ropes.  The ships forced to harbor there seem to sulk like spoiled children long used to luxury elsewhere, and our own was little exception.  But it is far north, bitter and cold, and so the port authorities are loathe to be called from their warm little shacks to seriously examine everything coming through the port.  So a few cutthroats peddling some rotten vegetables and sending into the wastelands a crew of bounty hunter types.  But this fellow we met there, he was a peculiar one.  Didn't look quite Morrigari to me, the way he acted and was dressed.  He didn't have that efficiency about him the Morrigari seem to breed into their people and that punctilious nature so many seemed keep as a second nature in their pocket like so many unshelled nuts.  No, this one was truly put upon to be out of doors and away from whatever kept him warm, and from the sound of the giggling in his shack, I'd say it was more than a fire.

His uniform was a bit unkempt and no matter how he fidgeted, didn't ever achieve the arrow-straight angles and lines the Morrigari put into everything.  His shirtwaist was untucked and buttoned all wrong and it didn't take long for any of us to note he hadn't expected our arrival to be on time, despite our nearly monthly schedule for trade.  I believe he said his name was officer Smatress or Smathery or some such name I didn't catch in his accent, which was not Morrigari, but a more lilted, vowely lower Xomirian, or maybe even Elcherusian.  He had long mustaches hanging down and black hair, which set up a base camp at his bushy brows.  How he got to be such a high-ranking officer amongst such others that would probably rather hang his skin on a wall as much as marvel at its darker tint, was a miracle unto itself.

Anyway, he took our 'early' arrival as a personal affront, and immediately decided he would inspect every damned thing we brought ashore.  He wanted to see our manifests, our crates, our barrels.  He poked a long, sharpened rod down into bushels of things as though he half expected to stir a potful of bright, sparkly fairies into the air and catch one.  It was a rather trying day, and for our troubles of being extra careful of him not seeing just how we intended to smuggle six or seven undeads back to Sarkoshia, I didn't even get to see any half-dressed courtesans peering out of his shack to see when he'd return to them.  If he had had any women hidden away in that tiny shack with its dim yellow windows and warm orange light, they were either well ensconced in a corner like half-drunk wine barrels, or the smallest people ever to live, but I know that I heard the sounds of laughter from within.  Feminine laughter.  The bastard, I thought, he'd gotten all the good women to himself tonight.

We arrived late, as I said, so we did not proceed past Port Okabbis.  The road beyond leads through some rocky badlands riddled with thieves and wolves and all manner of unpleasant things.  So, after our inspection was done, and the premature winter night stepped on the town, we roosted in the only inn, The Bucket.  I'm pleased to have very little to report that happened at the Bucket, except that, if there are any women of value here in this town, that damned foreigner Harbormaster had inspected them and kept them for himself.


Day 30

As I said in a previous entry, when you are not looking for it, there it is.  We lost three of our number yesterday, as we stumbled upon a werpial unawares.  At least, we were unaware the damned thing lived about.  Apparently, there is little that shields us from the eyes of a werpial, though we have much to shield us from the eyes of the undead.  Of course, this beast does not 'see' the same way, and perceived our warmth and our vitality, and our physical persons, rather than the souls underneath as the undead so often do.

The trail had taken a downturn into a valley and through a particularly thick growth of evergreens, apparently the creature's territory.  As none of us are particular experts about these bizarre creatures, it is difficult to say whether or not we should have seen sign.  The beast lunged out of the bushes and crushed one of our men beneath its paws.  With a shake of its head, it snapped the man's neck, which was pinned firmly in the grip of its mouth, and proceeded to tear at his throat.  The werpial's primary defense is its large amounts of extra and extremely filthy flesh and spines along its backside.  It requires very long spears to kill one of these creatures, and we did not have long spears.  We had poles for catching and holding undead, but they were bound on our mounts.  Needless to say, we tried to give as much as we got, but the creature's spines and the infection they carried, killed three of our men, and these not even the slaves we brought with us to help manage the undead we were truly after.

We did not even manage to kill the creature.  It took one of its victims with it to presumably eat.


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I dunno.  If people want me to continue this, I will.  I really don't like this exercise, or at least I cannot seem to come up with anything for it much that isn't a novel right now.  However, I got a decent description out of it, and an interesting idea did come about from it that I might use later.

I'm thinking that the story was really at the port, where the port authority guy was being manipulated by a vampire.  I have been having interesting ideas about vampires.  They are, basically, like magical, pseudo-demonic gangsters (no, not the illuminati common to Blade movies or other secret society vampires), but more like creatures that can be very entertaining to a person from whom they are robbing something.  Sometimes, they suck blood, sometimes, they suck life or vitality or energy, and sometimes they merely eat up a person's time.  I'm thinking the Port Authority guy was given imaginary girls through vampire magic, and so he was unlikely to upset any apple carts.  Vampires are not resisted not as much because they are so powerful, but because they do things that are entertaining, though evil.  They do hurt and kill people, but they also recruit people who will allow them to do it.  They are the pornographers, the illegal casino owners, etc.  Vampires will cheat and manipulate people, and will make the people enjoy it.  Basically, vampires will exploit a person's vices and lack of self-control.

Yes, they will drink blood, but mainly, they live through other people, sucking blood, energy, breath, and memories out of people.  A friend of mine, Brennen, suggested that vampires are OCD, and this may be a motivation for this behavior, in that they enjoy eating the lives out of other people without getting any of the ill effects.  Honestly, I'm tired of vampires trying to make blood-drinking look appealing.  The most egregious and ridiculous examples being the Twilight movie where Bella drinks blood out of a friggin' cup with a STRAW.  Blood doesn't replace sex or beer for Trithofar vampires, I'm thinking.  Instead, vampires get something out of the taking from a person, and among that they get power and experiences and knowledge and unnatural life.

Hello again everyone,

I recently participated in an author's interview about The Dust Finders and a little bit of Drinna.  Here is a link.  Check it out: http://pembrokesinclair.blogspot.com/2012/10/meet-author-tuesday_9.html

Exercise 3: Unreliable 3rd Person

Exercise 3: Write a fragment of a story from the POV of an unreliable narrator--3rd Person Limited (or attached) narration.  500 words.

So, this one, I have to deliberately be unreliable as a narrator.  I've done this a little bit with The Dustfinders, and perhaps a little bit with the sequel hook to it.  Then again, I did it again some with The Afterknight.  But to be deliberately deceptive can be tricky.

Stipulations: It says the narrator has to be unreliable, but not an out and out liar.  How difficult this would be in a fantasy setting.  But I've done it before, and I guess I can do it again.  It shall be even trickier, now that I've discussed it.

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The words of the stranger had been jagged and piercing, like a rusty blade through his ear and directly into his brain.  He wasn't even sure he'd heard it, or even should have heard it.  It were as though he were a boy again and carrying unwanted, stolen goods, and yet he turned and twisted the words around again and again in his mind to make sure they all were still inside.  He translated them this way and that, backwards and forwards, toyed with them.  Why had the stranger come sidling up to him?  Why the message?  What did it have to do with anything at all?

And how was he wounded?  When the stranger fell away, falling onto his rump with a great gasp of air from his mouth, like an exhausted, winded runner, Brummen found his hand covered in blood.  It turned out these strange words were the man's last.  The final words of a dying man are made of gold, are they not?

Brummen decided they were.  While tinkering with them, he wrapped them up in explanation and presented them to himself again and again on more and more elaborate plates.  Served with enough spice, they became a sumptuous banquet for his long journey's duration.  A mindmeal, he thought with a laugh to himself.

The stranger hadn't been armed, and neither was Brummen.  Well, not really armed. He had his knife for eating and he had...well that's all he had to defend himself from brigands, his feasting dagger and that was really it.  Brummen wasn't a knight, nor a rich man.  He had enough, to be sure, but not much more than that.  He and his entire family'd been cheated out of knighthood and nobility a long time ago by those damned Keleveks out of Sourston outside of Larnale.  Their legal skullduggery was enough to ensure no member of Brummen's family, the Xennises, could ever attain the High Council again, nor continue their inheritance.  The Xennises had been once prosperous had it not been for a mistaken choice of bride...or affair...or whatever it was.

And then suddenly, Brummen stopped in his tracks.  A mindmeal, he thought.  For his journey.  Where was he going now?  And why?  Around him the wind gently passed like a stranger through the pine thickets on either side of the dirty, unkempt road.  It, like almost everything else on this road, had completely ignored him, not even really bothering to tickle his nose with the smells of farms or whisper the sounds of limbs in his ears.

How long it had been since he'd even thought about that story his father used to tell.  No, how long had it been?  Twenty years?  Thirty?

It was all just a mistake, what happened to his family, how they went from nobility to yeomen and merchants and opportunists.  They backed the wrong man, fell in love with the wrong woman, thought the wrong thoughts.  They pled mercy on a court with no appeals, the court of after-the-wars-were-over, when anyone tainted with the enemy's kiss was tainted with the enemy himself.

The ancient Xennis progenitor had fallen in love with the daughter of a Xenoreth supporter who had advocated and attempted to reproduce the, now-considered-horrible-sinful-and-completely-abominable, experiments that allowed Xenoreth to people his farms, ranches, and even offices with his undead 'puppets.'  But mistakes and sins fell down from father to son, and mother to daughter, and even through chains of cousins and nephews, until now...what was Brummen doing here?

The stranger, the man he'd found bleeding back there, the one who whispered those odd words into his very soul, had shaken everything else out of his brain.  Those words were on the table, and now they filled the stomach of his mind, and he could think of nothing, so glutted he himself on those words.  A mindmeal.  Hah!  He'd tell his father about that.  How clever, to think of a simple message like that.  He wasn't usually so much for metaphors, had no aptitude for poetry at all, but he kept that image in his brain, that he could eat words, that he could digest them.  He'd go home one day soon, or perhaps to an inn somewhere, and he'd eat a real dinner, and have a wench on his lap, and he'd tell her about this.

If only he could figure out why he was here.  He was sent here.  His father had sent him.  His father had sent him to go and fetch something.  What was it?

He patted along his chest and belly, along the sides of his pants.  His hands went into his pockets, searching for whatever it was that commissioned his journey just now.  How could he forget?  His family were merchants with a proud tradition, even though they had been publicly shamed out of their nobility so long ago.  Tradition and reputation were harsh, harsh mistresses, infinitely displeased, so no matter what a man did to redeem himself and appease them.

His hand fished out from his pocket a tattered, letter.  This must have been what he was about today.  It had to be, for it was the only thing in his pocket of note, other than a few odds and ends he'd put there to examine later.  The note was smeared with blood now, because Brummen had forgotten it was on his hands.

Surely his father had sent him to deliver this note to someone, somewhere.  But who and where.  Perhaps the note would tell him.  He perused the letters, but he could not get the image of eating words on plates, bleeding rare and covered with sauces, and drinking wines made of punctuation, from his mind.  Would a misspelled word taste bad?

Focus and determination strangely eluded him.  Carefully, despite the dreadful state of the letter, Brummen opened it.  The words didn't make much sense to him.  Had they ever?  They weren't nearly as important as the message the old man gave him just before dying.  Nothing ever could be.  That was a secret of the universe, after all, and this...well, this note could have been anything.  Maybe all it was was hiring more peasants to come work the fields.  They wouldn't be able to read the blood on the note, much less the words there.  Still and all he would have to read it.

"...Ithiots and other undead...necessary to contain...farms...animals dying mysteriously...a ghoul...."   Gah, this was boring, dry stuff.  Just some nonsense about ghouls and things, some farmers complaining about their crops being trampled by the undead.  Who cared?  Just shoot the things, or burn them, or call a restman, or whatever it mattered to do.

Brummen had seen a ghoul once.  Maybe when he was eleven or twelve, he thought.  It was from a distance, and it was hanging in a tree by its head, the head wrapped up in a bag.  The farmers couldn't kill it.  Farmers...there was a farm near here.  Brummen shook his head.  No, he wasn't being sent to a farm.  This was more important.  He tried to read again, but only yawned and groaned and continued to roll around those words the stranger said in his mind.

He thought maybe today he would speak nothing but the Morrigari language today.  It might be fun, even though most of Larnale and the surrounding ex-Xomirian empire spoke Xomirian.  Maybe they would think him a spy, and when he decided, he would tell them he wasn't in the right language.

No matter what, though, he had to tell someone what the old man told him.  The secret of the universe.  It was true.  This was some very terrible knowledge he had, and he could not possibly keep it for himself.

"A mindmeal must be shared!" he decided out loud.  "One cannot feast oneself, unless one decides to feast on oneself, which...would be silly...to eat oneself to keep from starving.  To feed one hunger is to make another, isn't it.  Feed the hunger in the belly, and you feed the hunger in the veins, or you feed the hunger in the brains.  That rhymed."  Maybe he was a poet after all.  Brains, veins, intest...ains.  He'd heard musicians stretch words to their utmost like that in pubs and taverns.  Why not.  Brains, pains, veins, intestains, felicitashanes...of course that last wasn't a real word, was it?  He had to move on if he ever expected to share anything with anyone.

The crunch of the gravel on the road beneath his feet was interesting now.  He'd never thought about gravel before.  Chickens eat gravel, he thought.  And gravel complains a lot when you walk on it.  Does gravel just turn to dust?

Why was he thinking about gravel?  What nonsense.  He had a party invitation to carry onwards to Lord...something or other.  He was sure to know when he got there.

"Oh, here's someone with all the questions," Brummen decided as he saw someone riding up on horseback towards him.  The man was dressed in beautiful, dark colors, and he wore upon his head a strange cap like a stocking that only allowed his eyes to be seen.  A cape flowed down like black and red water over the back of the reddish horse.  Over the coif, he wore an even stranger helmet, which had spikes along the sides.

He would want to hear the stranger's words.  Of that Brummen had no doubt.  This was important.  This was very important, more important than all the notes and letters and talk of weather that could ever pass from one breeze to the next.  The words came bubbling up in his mouth readily.  They were birds stepping up to a knothole that was his mouth.

"I need to tell you something important, something I was told just now, not long ago," Brummen said.  The rider stopped.  Oh good, a convert, a supplicant, a fellow wanderer wandering through the philosophical thickets of this insane world.

"I found it out from a man not far back there, a man with a hole in his guts, which bled and bled.  I didn't make the hole, though.  He came up to me and told me something, and I have been gnawing on it ever since.  It has been my mindmeal, and I cannot keep it in."  Just at that moment, a flash of unpleasantness struck Brummen, like a sudden kick to the guts.  He remembered something terrible.  It was something about the man.  He had been on his way somewhere he thought important and the man came up to him.  He grabbed him.  He remembered the man's lips so close to his cheek, his grunts so raw and besmirched with dread and passion and stinking breath he thought they would have kissed.  The tickle of his beard went up the side of Brummen's face, and the hot breath steamed his cheek like a morning apple.  And then he'd said those words.  Brummen remembered having his knife out, he remembered wanting to push the man away, but those words. They slithered out from the man's rotten face, and out his rotten throat, and into Brummen's ear and they writhed their way right into his brain.

Important words.  Words like none other.  Words that had the meaning, the only meaning, compared to which all other things became as fragile and as worthless as fog in the dawn.  Maybe the words were poison.  Maybe he needed to get rid of those words.  Maybe if he told them to someone else, they would carry them on a ways.

"Oh well, either way I must tell you.  This man told me about the gods, though I think I may have accidentally murdered him, more or less on purpose, but without real intent.  You see, when I chicken finds a snake while it's looking for gravel, it is not fit to eat, and when the snake bites the chicken, it is difficult for the man who comes upon it to know exactly how it died."

These weren't the words.  The man would have to dismount to hear the proper words.  They weren't just words a person throws around, but proper ones, that have to be breathed right into the very heart of the soul of a man's brain.

"I'm not speaking this quite right.  Can you come down from that horse and listen to what I have to say.  It is important, I think.  You'd thank me for this knowledge.  Like I was saying, it's about chickens...I don't know why chickens, though...but if a chicken grows up in a henhouse, and still dies, but then is bitten by a snake, it's still dead, and both ways it dies, but one way it entertains mankind and becomes a meal, and another, it becomes a waste, but the chicken is still dead."

The man dismounted.  He pulled a sword from a scabbard on his belt.  Brummen knew he had nothing to fear, this man, because all Brummen wanted to do was explain the universe to him, the words the man had told him on the road, before Brummen had accidentally stabbed him.  Maybe if Brummen had not been so hasty, the man would have told him something even better....

Brummen was hardly aware when the sword cracked his skull open like an egg and lodged itself deep inside his brains.  His mindmeal was ruined, though, and for that, he was very cross.  But only for a moment.  He remembered liking the blue sky through the green trees.

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This is based on a creature I created for another story.  The creature is called an Ithiot.  It is based on the concept of Ith from the Qwadro.  Ith is a demon of chaos, insanity, and lack of self-control. The undead/monsters he usually inspires are people who lose their mind and try to drag others into their insanity with them.  The Ithiot is one of the powerhouses of Ith's armies.  While it is not technically an undead, it is instead a tortured soul.  Ithiots do not die by themselves, nor starve to death, nor catch diseases.  They are killed normally, however.  The danger of an Ithiot is not recognizing one until it has spread its message to another person.

Ithiots are tainted by poisoned words spoken in the ear of a victim which, like some kind of insidious earworm song, stick and burrow deeper and deeper into the psyche, until the person is driven completely insane by them.  The person who hears these words automatically assumes that he has heard some great and terrible truth about the universe and the meaning of life, and will attempt to share these words with whomsoever he can.  Being tainted by an Ithiot is called being "Whispered" because a person has to be very close and the words have to be whispered into the ear directly to be effective.

It is believed there is no cure for someone who has become an Ithiot; however there are preventative measures that can be taken, and which have unfortunately been taken too often.  In Trithofar, they have had a few Ithiot plagues take root, and it became difficult for people to tell whether or not a person was truly whispered, which led to the insane or the mentally unstable, or just people who wanted to whisper, to be treated with special care and/or violent reactions.

2nd Exercise from 3 AM EPIPHANY by Brian Kiteley

#2 Imperative: Write a fragment of a story that is made up entirely of imperative commands.

Stipulations: It says "entirely" but it also says a "fragment."  Hmmm.  Can a narrative work entirely in the imperative tone or mood or whatever it is called (yes, I know, but am off the clock for now as a teacher).  It says further in the book that a "you" is implied.  So, this will turn out to be a second-person narrative.  Somehow, I've got to get a story across, from Trithofar, but with nothing but commands.  I am also stipulating that so long as part of any individual sentence is a command, it counts.

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Letter from Sir Vesket Brargley to his Assistant, Novice Etwart Gellebray, Monster Hunters and Holy Knights.

The shadowlash, as we both know, is a very devious and fractious pest in any situation in which they are found; therefore, when investigating an area to determine if shadowlashes are present, it is vital that you remember that you are the being with the soul.  A shadowlash thrives on frustration, uneven tempers, and a willingness to give up, therefore you must not have any of these elements to your temperament.  You must also remember, that a shadowlash is a magical creature, capable of hurt and menace to a household or even community.  Remember also, they thrive and tend to encourage paranoia, false accusations, and infighting among a particular people.

When investigating a shadowlash infestation, investigate all sights of possible attacks as though they were their own different events, and as though they could be something other than a shadowlash.  Do not readily assume a shadowlash is involved.  Investigate all footprints, signs of upheaval, evidence of theft, or any property damage as though a lesser, and more mundane, animal were involved.  Make extra certain there are no leavings that could belong to another animal, because to attempt to exorcise or eliminate a shadowlash will not necessarily work to eliminate one of the creatures a shadowlash commonly imitates.  Furthermore, notice that the shadowlash may imitate the calls, the tracks, even the fur of another creature, but it cannot imitate the excrement of another creature.  Shadowlashes are, quite possibly, Ithite creatures and you should treat them as such, remembering that their goal, and purpose of creation, is to cause chaos, panic, and strife between people.  Consequently, note that their excrement is going to be more along the lines of ectoplasmic sorts of residue than typical piles of common feces.  When investigating any dead animals, check to make sure such a residue is not present.

If a natural culprit cannot be found, you must still not leap immediately to a shadowlash.  Remember, there are yet other creatures who can cause equal disturbance, and which serve similar functions or purposes as our nemesis we are tracking here.  You must render another test to ensure that a shadowlash presence is to be found.  Use your blessed water as well as your blessed icons handy.  Sprinkle sacred water in areas that have not yet suffered attacks, or near people who seem particularly frustrated by the creature's meddling.  Make sure to leave one of these people alone and do nothing with them, especially if it means they will be particularly angry or jealous of your work elsewhere.  If necessary to get someone riled, pretend ignorance or even outright tell them there is little to be done yet, to see if you can increase tension in the village or town or household where the attacks are happening.  It may yet even become necessary to sacrifice one of the animals to ensure that people around you become quite tense.  Again, remember, you are doing this for the greater good of the village, so therefore it is not lying or cheating the people, but helping find the source of the problem.  As doctors must probe a wound to seek out the greatest pain, so must we, that is, you, must probe the area most likely to be hurt or infected, and that, as we both know, is the people with the greatest difficulty holding their tempers; find these hotheads, so, too, you will find a shadowlash closing in.

Keep a steady patrol by night.  Keep one of your hooded lanterns at the ready, but as hidden as possible.  Wait at the house of the man you think to be either the most suspicious of his neighbors or the one you think least trusting in your services.  This will be where the beast will strike, so wait on it there.  Turn in your prayer book to the "Ninth Prayer of Saint Fellisus: The Prayer of Blessed Ignorance."  Pray this prayer as you maintain your vigil, for this prayer was used to make undead and evil spirits ignore certain people in the past and has proven efficacious to believers trying to hide from the wicked and devilry of the Qwadro.  Be sure to sprinkle your weaponry with the blessed water, and be sure to pray over all weaponry individually using the "Fourth Prayer of Leor: The Asking of Extra Power."

Do not attempt to engage this beast in the darkness.  When it comes, and when you know it has arrived, open your lantern.  The light, if you have blessed the lantern properly, will pin the beast to the wall.  You must look sharp for it, as it will attempt to blend in, and become just a mundane shadow, but remember that evil and wickedness can only mock goodness and innocence; therefore, when you see it, note that there will be something off or deranged about the shadows cast where the shadowlash is.  Keeping the lantern light upon it, thrust your sword into the beast until you no longer hear it screaming.  Make sure it is dead by finding the ectoplasmic residue upon your weapons.  This substance, coming in contact with your blessed water and your blessed weaponry, should sizzle into vapor, so be sure to watch for it, along with any contact with the creature itself.  Be absolutely sure to bury the creature and sanctify the ground above and around it.

Send a letter to me of your progress to Larnale, courtesy of the Brookbabble Inn.  Be encouraged by my absolute faith and confidence in your training.  Know that you do not have to be a Ligniite nor are we Ligniites to be effective as a stay against the darkness.  Keep the light in your heart, and it will stave off the evil left behind by those foul loathsome enemies of ours.  Both of us will vanquish the darkness, but you must remember your vows and keep a steadfast mind and heart.  Be brave and be strong, and anon I hope we shall meet to discuss your success at the Brookbabble.

Yours in Alterrus Azurius,

Sir Bragley

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Thoughts on this Exercise:

I don't know if I really wrote a story by doing this.  Telling someone to do something is really an essay, isn't it?  Directions aren't necessarily a narrative, are they?  Then again, my...whatever this is...includes characters.  There is a setting implied as well as a plot implied.  However, it is a second-person story taking place, with any luck, in the future.  An interesting twist on story telling, to be sure, but I certainly could not write an entire novel on this.  Would a short story written this way even sell?  I"m not even sure there were not rule violations going on in this little amount I wrote.

However, I did have a lot of fun making up a new monster in Trithofar for this.  A creature that lurks in shadows and tries to get people fighting amongst themselves by killing and stealing and destroying.  This creature replaces the idea of a shadow gremlin.  I do too much with gremlins, so I need something to take the place of what I used to have as the shadowgremlin.  An evil spirit that plays pranks or does not-earth-shattering-damage to a group of people is not a bad idea.

A POST A WEEK...I HOPE...

I have a book I ordered off of...somewhere...a long time ago called the 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley.  It has various exercises for increasing a writer's abilities.  Usually, these involve some tweaking of particular tropes.  I have thought that perhaps I can do one of these exercises a week, but relate it back to something Trithofar.  I'm going to give it a try.


Exercise 1: The Reluctant I: Write a story from the first person in which you use the first person pronoun I only two times, while still keeping the I somehow important.

Stipulations: This says I cannot use the pronoun "I" but twice.  It does not stipulate that I cannot use "my," "me," or "mine."  I am assuming this is fair game.  Furthermore, I don't know that I'll do a whole story, but a part of one.  I have a desire to begin or work on my sequel to the Dust Finders, so here goes nothing.

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The k'toogs are overpriced, but it's not my money being spent on them.  A little negotiations here or there with the right men, and now my client is satisfied that we are prepared to go on our little excursion back into the desert.

This time, he's a clever one, my client.  He will not be easy to take any advantage of, if any advantage can be had at all.  He has many contacts and connections around me already, and perhaps several others unseen.  But one thing is certain, and that is that he does not know the wastes.  He doesn't know about k'toogs or ek'lukas or anything at all about the dustfinders who go out there into the wastes, or the people who live along the edges like seagulls along a distant eastern shores.  He doesn't know where and how to find water, or where to camp, or how to know when a storm is coming.  He doesn't know any of these things.  But I do.    

Mostly, he sends his kinto-shah concubine or paramour or slave or whatever she is to him to do his business for him.  She is called Si-Lua and unlike him, this client Kelvin who wears the stuffy, woolly overcoats and hats of distant Rothlar or New Marthin, she wears mostly Elven silks today.  She stands beside one of the k'toogs and pets its rough hair.  K'toogs aren't used to kinto-shah.  They think of them like big rats, which makes them uncomfortable.  A k'toog will raise a foot and smash a rat to paste, but it can't do that with a kinto-shah.  And she doesn't care.  She pets the great, grunting, desert beast all the more, her hand shying away only when the beast under it grunts or shudders its leathery skin.

As she walks up and down the line of wagons, her hand leaps and lights along the boxes as though it were a little hair-covered bird.  She has the decency to cover her face, and she wears a bit of perfume from the region: Queen El'j'ga's spice, it's called.  She doesn't hop the way some of them do, but takes long strides on her long legs, placing each step carefully.  Her fur seems to be a light gray and cream color mixed, and her ears are pert things that stand atop her head attentively to everything.  What this means is uncertain.  With kinto-shah, their ears say a lot, or so it's been said.     

She seems to approve of the caravan.  She doesn't get in the way of my workers and security officers, but steps lightly and easily away when they come near.  This Kelvin has hired a few of his own men to monitor the wagons as well.  One of them is a big man, with darker skin than mine, who carries a big metal hammer with him like a child carries a favorite toy.  Another is a shady fellow, who bears a crossbow and a constant scowl on his face.  Kelvin himself has been more elusive than gold, but we had a meeting when he first came into town.  Honestly, he frightens me.  He is cold and direct, and negotiates like a man possessed by a devil.  He insists upon going to Kultah, and he comes to me because he knows I've been there.

I recorded my father's memories down about when my original tribe and people perished out in the wastes.  My father was an imbecile, but an honest and decent man.  His memories were so vague and unclear.  It is perhaps my recordings of him, and his deeds so long ago, during my youth when I lost my hand to an ek'luka's sharp, rock-breaking beak, that convinced Kelvin of my native naivete and innate stupidity.  Publishing my father's story earned me a few clients, but no better respect, which can be quite advantageous.  Onesides, like me, are often thought of as stupid, because they made a mistake once in their life.  We take advantage of such assumptions.

Kelvin came here thinking to hire me as some native guide, only slightly better than the k'toogs themselves, to lead him on some profound treasure hunt out in the wastes.  Maybe he thinks to reclaim the long-lost secrets of the ancient Terrilians.  Probably, he thinks he can find Kultah Keep, the ancient Simmorian Stronghold and library, but keeps me along to be sure.  He mentioned the keep only once in our negotiations, but with him that seemed much.  He was tight-lipped to me about everything.  It was like playing cards with him.  You never really knew when he was intentionally revealing his cards or when he truly let something slip out.  My book of my father's memories mentions Kultah, not the keep, but the region.  Who knows if my father knew anything about where we were.

"Good day to you," she says politely to me.  She saw me earlier standing in my offices.  It is rude in my culture for women to start a conversation, though this was never really true out in the wastes.    Or at least my father did not rebuke my mother for it.  It is of little consequence to me.

"And to you.  Do you approve of what you see?"  My Morrigari is a bit too formal.  It makes me seem sycophantic, but perhaps even this is to my advantage.

"It is sufficient.  It seems to be not much here.  This will take us vhere ve vish to go?" she says, her ratty lips getting in the way.

"When the ek'luka come trailing behind us, it will be plenty.  You see, the ek'luka are scavengers, and so they will follow us.  They are ugly, but they have wondrous good meat on them.  Tough meat, which stays in your stomach a long time.  One of them is enough to live on for days and days."

"Is that the reason for the box of garbage and refuse?" she asks me, indicating the box at the back of the caravan.

"Your mind is as sharp as your nose.  Indeed it is.  Have you sailed the seas much?"

"Only as much as my work requires, but yes?"

"Ever been with a fishing expedition before?  They chum up the waters to get some of the bigger fish interested.  It is the same here.  We carry out some refuse from the city, what we can manage, and we toss it out.  The ek'luka comes and eats it, and then we kill them.  This keeps us from carrying so much food."

Her ears are even more alert than usual.  They turn this way and that, like sails in a strong wind.  She steps closer to me, embracing me with her perfume and her warm proximity.  The kinto-shah is a beastial creature, covered in fur, and yet still warmer to the touch than a man or woman.  Somehow, she is almost seductive in her ways, as though she learned how to at least interest a man not otherwise curious about the furry ones.

"Ju do realize that this is no ek'luka hunt.  Ve do not go into ze desert to come vack quickly.  Ny Naster is not a sfort fishernan.  Ve are going deef into the deserts and ve may not return for months and months.  Is that a froblem for ju?"

"Your master picked the very best with me, a dustfinder from way back.  If you know what you are doing, you can live off the wastes for years and years."

"Ny naster also devands extreme secrecy in this voyage.  Ju cannot tell anyvun vhere ve go, or vhat ve are looking for, or vhat ve have seen, even vhen ve return here."

"That would be exceedingly difficult without first having been told myself.  The instructions from both of you have consistently been that we go west by southwest, to where my tribe was lost.  When you wish to go into the wastes without knowing where you are going, you hire me, and so you have."

My hands reach for some of the ropes and tarps securing some of the cargo down on the backs of the flat wagons.  It is an instinct.

"Do ju have maps of the deserts?"

"No one has a map of those wastes.  It is like having a conversation with someone.  You have to know what they can talk about, what they know, and then you know where they hide things.  Dunes move like old men find a place to piss.  Slowly, but they do get to where they are going.  A few places out there don't wander, but not many."

"There is somefing else ju must know avout ny naster.  He is a hard man.  People vreak on him like glass on stone.  Do not cross him.  Do not second-guess him.  Do not argue vith him.  Do not fail him."

The way she said these things put a cold wind in my veins.  Normally, my innate salesman arrogance, my pride in my work, shields me from such things, but this time, it was different.  This time, it felt like the sand on the horizon, the first glimpses of a coming storm.  


RESULTS: WOW! I am extremely happy with this exercise.  Having to avoid using "I" constructions really improves the variety and construction of my sentences.  Probably, I will attempt to avoid I constructions as much as possible in the future and had no idea how debilitating they were on my work.      

Having an idea about Elves

Ever since Tolkien remodified them with the Silmarillion and The Lord of The Rings, the idea of elves has often been one of tall, beautiful, immortal people who, for some reason, live in the forests.  I'm not knocking Tolkien per se, but I think this trope has been done to death.  Which is why I have attempted to make Elves of Trithofar to be so different.  Whereas I have some information about the elves of Trithofar on this blog, some ideas I fleshed out for my own use later on in canon novels, I have recently had an idea about them that I am playing with.  I would love to get commentary from anyone who actually honors me with following this blog.  But I was thinking more and more about making elves even more different, but also recycling some ancient lore about them.

What if the reason elves stay in the forests is that they have severe allergies to metals, particularly worked metals, like iron and steel, and maybe even some of the precious metals like gold and silver.

This is just a brainstorm right now, but this would explain some things about elves and make them a little more interesting in a way.  It would explain why they stay in the forests (they don't need mines and they don't want metals), and it would explain why they would prefer animals and elflings, as well as bows and arrows.  It would give them a very different sort of magic, one that did not rely on metal, but relied on growing things in the shapes, sizes, and durability they needed.  Basically, metals, to an elf, would be like radioactive materials OR like something to which they are allergic.  It may even cause mutagenic properties.

The only problem with this I foresee is that they would not be good in any sort of standup fight against armored enemies.  A guy with a sword and some good armor would be more than a match for them, I would think, unless...magical means of dealing with such things.  Or would it?  If you have an intricately carved, magical sword that is as strong as steel, then really it would be about the same thing, wouldn't it?

Hmmm, magical forging processes, where elves are able to find plenty of materials, but it takes longer to make their stuff.  However, it could be called Willforging or Willbending or something like, and be a particular branch of mage-craft or enchanting.  Maybe even a primitive form of it.  Hmmm, again.  The only problem is that Istviriin is an Elf enchanter and a member of the Original Counsel of Eight.  There's an interesting and complicated issue to be sure.  

I'm still not really satisfied with the elves in Trithofar, even with all that stuff I put on the post way back when.  Particularly vexing is the way they reproduce.  I almost want to make them alien from humans or human like creatures, because the old ways of reproduction have been done and I have too many races that are too compatible with each other already.  Not sure.

I think I'll save the really weird stuff for goblins though.  I may come back to this.  If anyone cares.

Human Beings are Sometimes Very Stupid and Will Ferrel: Comedy Whore

First thing: I was very grieved to hear about the shootings in Colorado this morning.  I don't know why such things have to happen or why people have to act so horribly.  Why couldn't this guy just sit down and enjoy the movie.  My condolences and prayers are with those victims who just came to have a good time and see a really good movie and had it ruined by a douchebag with a gun.  

I have been checking news sites since originally posting this.  I feel so very bad for the victims involved.  Why some people do these horrid things, I really wish I could say.  I really wish I could understand it.  The world is a messed up place and there are messed up people in it.  Again, my prayers are with the men, women, and particularly the children who were involved in such a horrible crime.  

It's official: Will Ferrel is not only a comedy whore, an untalented comedian, and is driving comedy into a place where I think even it should not go.  I saw the preview for that Campaign movie and wow: why would it ever be funny to have someone punch a baby?  Why is that even remotely funny?  Are we moving now into the equivalent of dead baby humor now in movies?  Is that the next joke that these idiots who are making these cheap laugh comedies are going to try?  Adam Sandler, Will Ferrel, Galifinakis: RETIRE before going there, please!  Will Ferrel, I hope you will advocate that stupid scene be cut from that movie.  Otherwise, YOU ARE A COMEDY WHORE, willing to exploit any taboo, faux pas, crap for a cheap laugh from some marginal dorks who have never seen a child suffer before or who have suffered the loss of a child.  Honestly, who would find that funny.  

Rant complete.  

Kunjel Stuff: Life Stages and Their Landmarks in Kunjelic Society

As I am working hard to get out a sequel to Drinna (for those of you who cared to read Drinna: thank you), and I am working in other things in Trithofar, I am posting my notes so far on Kunjelic Life Stages.  Perhaps this will help understand something of Drinna's life and the life of her people and how her culture thinks.

Because Kunjels grew up in Gollithia, a world notorious for large and dangerous animals, many of which did NOT come with them into Trithofar, they grow up a little faster than humans and are typically not as silly as some young humans tend to be, though with many foibles all their own as well.  Anyway, here is a list of life stages.

With each stage, I am giving the root.  To make it male, add -or; female, add īa (pronounced as in 'eye-ah')

Stage: Bēm (helpless or infant)
Age: Birth until around 1-1.5 years old.  
Physical Landmarks:  
1.  Ability to walk unassisted.  
2.  Ability to hold onto something in hand and manipulate it
3.  First set of teeth.  
Social/Cultural Landmarks: 
1.  Have no say in society.  
2.  Basically are considered to be utterly helpless and dependent (DUH!)
Mental Landmarks:  
1.  Ability to recognize and even name many of his primary family members.  
2.  Ability to say a few words that make sense.  Kunjels develop the ability to express ideas much faster than comparable human children.  They cannot exactly talk, but they have a bit quicker ability to recognize and name things.  
Exit Pass:
1.  Ability to recognize someone they see by name.
2.  Ability to walk unassisted.
Ceremonies:
1.  The First Path: The child is taken to the church and made to walk all the way across a particular room with a grass-covered floor without help.  When he does this, he is rewarded with food and encouragement, and has purrweed rubbed on forehead and a special prayer given by the priest(ess) in charge of the ceremony.  His name is officially recorded on his scroll in the church and signed off by the priest(ess).  Usually, this means the child has overcome a year of growth and will not suffer from early childhood fatal problems.  The child receives his/her name officially as Bēmor or Bēmīa _______________, Infant of the Protector's Blessing.
Rewards:
Child is given a small amount of freedom about the house and is allowed to be with parents.  Sometimes, he can even be trusted to go outside with a parent and walk about.

Stage: Bēsh (Tiny One):
Age: 1-4 years old.
Physical Landmarks:
1.  Ability to run (albeit awkwardly).
2.  Ability to climb certain small things.
3.  Ability to recognize tastes and food from non-food.
4.  First set of teeth basically in place (for defense as well as eating).
Mental Landmarks:
1.  Can be somewhat aggressive towards others, those child does not like.  Bitey.
2.  Ability to talk solidifies.  Able to make requests and attempt demands and carry on limited conversations.
3.  Able to play quite a bit and invent toys, first signs of creativity and individual thought.  
Cultural Landmarks:
1.  Sleeping in own bed.
2.  Able to play and stay within certain area of house (usually hearing).
3.  Recognizes friends now and enjoys playing with fellows.  
4.  Learning to count.  
Exit Pass: 
1.  Object recognition.
2.  People recognition.    
3.  Ability to climb a small obstacle.  
Ceremonies: 
1.  The Little Mountain of Finding: A very small piece of what could be compared to as playground equipment is presented to the child (basically, this could be a stone structure or a wooden structure about half a person tall, usually a box or trapezoidal shaped thing).  The child is required to climb in and out of the thing and fetch a particular object from it from a group of objects and take it to a specified person.  
2.  Girls and boys have hair tied at this age.  There is very little difference in dress between boys and girls of this age, and this mostly so special clothing does not have to be made.  Because girls and boys of this age are far from any sort of need of 'beauty,' they are encouraged not to differentiate.  
Rewards: 
The child's accomplishment is recorded on their scroll, and the child is named a Bōsor or Bōsīa.  At this point, the child is expected to learn how to count and to sort objects.  Many kunjel parents teach their children how to recognize certain dangerous objects, plants, animals, etc.  The child is given further privileges and introduced to more friends and allowed to play a little more away from the house.  The child is asked to do certain things as well, and help parents with small tasks.  


Stage: Pesh (little or young boy/girl)
Ages: 4-6 years old
Physical Landmarks: 
1.  Able to play and be trusted not to do too many stupid things.  Able to actually go and visit other houses in the wolch within sight of home by him/herself.    
2.  Able to dress and bathe self.  
3.  Able to find and recognize wild-growing food.  
Mental Landmarks: 
1.  Full command of spoken language and able to carry on reasonable amounts of conversation with adults and peers.  
2.  Able to hear and repeat stories told as well as songs.       
3.  Able to count as far as 100.
4.  Beginning to learn how to group and count as well.  Basic addition and subtraction skills being acquired .
5.  Ability to recognize sacred objects from other objects.
Cultural Landmarks:
1.  First stage where child can boss younger children around.  They are not allowed to discipline younger children, but they outrank younger children.  
2.  Receive first choice of food, and are able to choose what they like to eat and not eat.  
3.  Etiquette training begins.  
Exit Pass: Ability to change clothes by themselves and choose appropriate clothing for different situations.  Ability to bathe and groom self.  Ability to recognize appropriate behaviors in different situations as well.
4.  Children begin to differentiate between boys and girls in how they dress and self-decorate a little.  Boys usually cut their hair shorter, while girls continue to grow it out.  Jewelry is worn, as are particular perfumes and things.  Girls begin to wear purrweed, while boys typically where the oils of certain gremlins (like minkoils) or sweetgrass oils.   
Ceremonies: 
1.  The Churchjourney: The parents put out various items required for grooming and dressing and tell the child to prepare himself to meet the Protector.  They then tell the child that he is to prepare himself to go to church and to come to the church when he has done so.  He is to groom himself and present himself in the Church.  At this time, he must make his first prayer to the Protector as well as his own person.    
Rewards:
1.  Now the child is trusted to go places and do things for the family.  The child is required/allowed to dress how he/she wants to dress.  The child is given the ability to be a boy or girl in the wolch.  The child can go with parents and start to learn how to hunt, fish, and get his/her own food.  Child entrusted with certain responsibility and chores around the house, including fetching water, picking berries or grasses, making or maintaining things, etc.

Stage: Jeb (high or recognized boy or girl or normal boy or girl)
Ages: Usually from 6-7 years old until around 10-11 years old, though if the child has not finished the previous stage, this one can be skipped, and is often done if the child is not showing signs of being very scholarly and is more interested in labor and chores, or the priests have decided that he/she will be a laborer of some kind.  A child must achieve Jebhood if they are going into the priesthood or to be a knight or scholar of any kind.  Debatable if they are going into being a merchant or wagoner or farmer.
Physical Milestones:
1.  The child is basically pre-pubescent, but very close.  This is the very beginning of their first pubescent growth spurts (at the end of this stage, that is).
2.  At their strongest before puberty.  They can run and hunt and keep up with an adult.
3.  Playing sports and understands the rules.  
Mental Milestones:
1.  The child is able to remember and recite things he/she hears quite well.
2.  The child is able to understand the point behind stories, myths, and legends other than just able to know their meaning.
3.  The child can count up to 200 and fluently add, subtract, multiply, and divide within that range.
Cultural Milestones:
1.  The child can interact with adults rather fluently.
2.  The child can hear and tell stories.  
3.  The child can relay information about people and their needs.  
4.  The child can help dress game, cook, and wash.  
5.  The child recognizes the importance of etiquette and social interactions.  
Exit Pass: 
1.  The ability to sing an entire song or recite an entire story from beginning to end AND explain why the story matters.  
Ceremonies: 
The Recital: The child stands before the Assembled Church and successfully sings a ballad OR tells a story, usually something by memory.  In both cases, the child must explain why he/she chose the particular thing performed, what's important about it, and how it relates to his/her life.  If acknowledged (by having the congregation stand to vote), the child is given jebhood.  If not acknowledged, the child waits for Desshood.  Jebhood is a very honorable title to have in one's community, usually subject to privileges above and beyond the Dessel.  If they fail in their task, they wait to be acknowledged as a Dess and are instead labeled a Dedess (near dess).  This is a very serious thing and not every child necessarily achieves this ranking, and in fact there are, in some societies, limitations on just who will be able to achieve this rank in a given year, if at all.  In the bigger cities, the child must perform his story/song in front of the counsel of priests.  Not every child even tries to do this.
Rewards: 
1.  Jebs begin some of their education sooner than other kunjels and are usually made to be prefects or helpers in their school groups as well as tutors.  They are allowed to help in church functions as well as deliver messages between people.  They are given special seating in church.  Among the others their age (once they've become dunel or higher), they are allowed first choices as to which books they wish to read during their education period, and they are allowed to read some of the forbidden or Elder Books.  They are given priority also when their marriages are arranged and are married before the rest of the dunels.  Jebs are allowed to survey certain careers, as in be a sort of temporary apprentice to certain people.  They are called upon to do particular tasks for the clergy and can become squires to knights.    
2.  Jebs are taught, during Jebhood, how to take account of things written and how to write the names of certain people and things.  They are taught how to do inventories and required to increase their memories.  Some of them are even allowed to transcribe books (without knowing the meaning of the words, of course) for their town scribes.
3.  Jebs are allowed to assist in hunting or with knight missions and allowed to help maintain weaponry.  
4.  Jebs are allowed to assist in sorting out farm goods and other materials that require a priest's distribution and some of them are even allowed to help deliver them.  They are taught more of the managerial type tasks and such.  
5.  Jebs are allowed to learn how to ride and maintain japals and horses and other livestock as well.  
6.  Jebs receive permission to wear a particular necklace with a pendant on it to designate their ranking.  
   
Stage: Dess (Near man or Near Woman; the word Dess being a part of the word for Near).
Ages: 12-14 or so
Physical Milestones:
1.  Puberty is setting in.  Boys grow bigger and stronger.  Girls develop breasts.  Both get some hair.  All get their hunter's teeth, which are an extra set of canines.  All begin to develop night vision in their eyes (the ability to see well past dusk quite well).
2.  Both become quite muscular and able to endure quite a bit of physical activity.
3.  The body is preparing for the rage and muscles can have spasms that are very painful during this time.  The rage glands are beginning to produce the adrenaline and other stuff mixture that makes the rage.
4.  When Kunjels start to growl at people they love with serious growls, it is time to think about the rage.  This stage lasts until the rage starts.  
5.  Typically, physical activities and exercise for Desses is suspended as soon after the Dess begins to show signs of the rage, to weaken them.  They are also given less food, in order to hurry the rage and make it happen.  When the body is threatened or made to endure difficult circumstances, sometimes that can cause the first rages to take place.
Mental Milestones: 
1.  Kunjels begin selecting where they are going in life, whether they will do what their parents are doing or will they start to learn a different trade/career.  They begin to apprentice some at this stage, if they have not started that as a Jeb.  
2.  During this time, they are taught culture, art, poetry, and above all: meditation.  Parents usually instruct their children in this time about how to live in Kunjelic society, the rules of living, the qualifications of becoming a wayward or moving up, the use of the rage, the inappropriate uses of the rage, and how to behave towards members of the opposite sex.  Many kunjels are taught at this time, above all others, to go into the family thought rooms and meditate.    
Cultural Milestones:
1.  The stage of being a Dess is something to be respected and watched.  They are in the time when the rage can begin, and when the rage begins, it means this time is over.  Kunjels do not have to have finished puberty before they get the rage, either, and it is actually preferable that they get the rage early and then develop physically, as it makes them easier to control.
2.  Children and adults are made aware of a person as a Dess.  Usually, Desses are announced before the entire congregation and they are required to stay home or near the church.  As soon as they feel the rage coming on, they must go into Trakia, during which they are bound and provoked into having the rage as much as possible while being fed as little as possible.  
3.  The kunjel learns about honor and how to keep it, and they are typically tested on it quite often.

TRAKIA:
The process called Trakia is basically translated as "Recreation."  One journeys through Trakia or goes through Trakia.  Trakia is a specific program carried out in cooperation with the church and the parents to both provoke a young Dess into the rage and teach them how to contain and control it.  Depending on where the young Dess lives and how close a Traktinis or Trakis is will determine how exactly a kunjel is restrained for the purposes of Trakia.  It will either involve being chained to a wall and fed little and provoked until rage happens, or it can be as simple as being chained to a post under a pavilion.  Of course, it may involve simply ropes and very astute family members.

During Trakia, the young kunjel must be kept hungry and nervous.  The candidate is not allowed much sleep and is often provoked, even treated with what we humans might consider to be near torture.  Water boarding?  Yeah, it could happen, among other things, and a fully grown kunjel would wonder what the big fuss is about if they heard about it.  It is NOT a pleasant experience for anyone involved and parents are often told they cannot visit but once a day or week depending.  During this time, the object is to so upset and so threaten the young Kunjel that they are forced into a rage as often as possible.  As the restrained kunjel comes to know what the onset of the rage feels like, they begin to teach them how to restrain it.  The candidates do not receive any permanent or life-threatening physical harm, nor is actual torture to be used, though painful and intensely frustrating things can be.  Until they can hold back the rage, the candidate is not permitted to leave.

When finally they are provoked to the rage, and hold it back, and voluntarily submit to the Calmist involved, and prove that they have no desire to harm the Calmist (or Provoker), then they are allowed to be released.  However, Trakia is not over.  Now, they must move the Sklunjia.

The Sklunjia traditionally is a large, irregularly shaped, heavy, piece of scrap metal.  It CAN be just about anything that a typical teenager could not lift and easily move, ranging from a huge piece of wood, to something half buried, to an anchor.  It must be something that is irritating to the touch in some way and it must be moved from one place to another, and it can be covered in oil or grease.  Traditionally, this means placing the object up on some kind of pedestal.  The point is that the rage, particularly the strength and focus the rage provides, is required to move the object (and so the kunjel must be able to turn the rage on when required and use it on something necessary).

The process of moving the Sklunjia takes place in a courtyard.  Members of the same sex in the family, as well as same-sex priests are allowed to be in attendance as someone moves the sklunjia because the person moving the sklunjia has to be naked or nearly so to prevent the use of clothing to help.  Usually, this will involve a very small loin cloth made of grass and perhaps a grass shirt if anything at all.  After the sklunjia is moved. the kunjel is declared before the witnesses to be a dun(īa/or).  Their scroll is updated.  Later, they are presented (wearing appropriate clothing) to the rest of the congregation of the church as a dunīa or dunor and accepted into the community.  Now, the kunjel has much to happen.  They are allowed to court and create a betrothal with another member of the community.  They begin learning to read and write in earnest, as well as begin to learn their careers.  Many kunjels only learn the basics of reading, while others learn more, depending on what they think they will be doing later.  Kunjels are not allowed to touch books or learn the difficult stories or debate religious doctrine without having been through Trakia.

Stage: Dun(īa/or)
Ages: Between 13 and 15 usually.
Physical Milestones:
1.  The rage and the ability to control it.
2.  Fully developed bodies.
3.  Flexible musculature and a bit of flexibility in joints.
Mental Milestones:
1.  The ability to control the rage, to make it occur, to use it, and to put it away again without committing sins.
2.  Knowledge of future career.
3.  Reading and writing ability.
4.  Knowledge of what are called "The Dark Miracles" and the "Secret Doctrines."  These are things that are not so nice that the Protector has done, particularly the Drod story.
Cultural Milestones:
1.  The rage is under control, able to be summoned when needed and stopped when needed.  The kunjel no longer blacks out while in the rage.
2.  The kunjel acquires a betrothal, arranging to be married with another.  During this time, the courtship ritual begins in earnest.  The females and males are, for the most part, on equal footing, and either one of them can end the courtship, but it is the male who must finally declare that he will marry the female.  During this time, the two are encouraged to exchange both gifts and secrets.  They are encouraged to write to each other.
3.  The females are required to make for themselves a bow and arrows and learn to hunt.  Kunjel females are often the ones who do most of the hunting and gathering.  Males will often hunt with their wives and help protect them from harm.  They will cook the game and they will protect the family with their lives.  The males will make a sword or spear for themselves.  This can be fine (in the case of rich families) or just good enough.  Some swords are little more than rectangular clubs, and it is up to the individual kunjels involved to make for themselves a good or a bad weapon of choice.  This may not be the only sword they ever get to use, but it is a symbol of their willingness to learn to make it, and so if it looks like crap, then, well, it looks like crap.  This is one of the few times a kunjel will ever have to make a weapon for free with the help of the local blacksmith.
Ceremonies:
The Bonding Ceremony: During which the priest acknowledges the couple and basically tells the others to keep "hands off."  It is neither polite nor honorable to get into a bonded pair of dunel's business.
The Making: When the Kunjel makes his/her weapon.
The Promisekeeping: During this time, a kunjel will make a promise and he will keep it.  So, if he promises to kill fifteen gremlins, then he will not return to his home until he's killed fifteen gremlins.  If he promises to climb a mountain, then he will do it.  The Promisekeeping is a ritual pronounced before the congregation and if carried out will earn a kunjel credibility among his people and credit with the priests of the church.  Often, knights have to promise to return to Thortinis in a year, during which time, they learn the laws of other lands.
The Breaking: This is a ceremony that undoes a betrothal.  The priest takes a stick and holds it up before the congregation and uses the rage to break the stick in their presence, declaring that what once was one has now become two.  This is done when one of the members of a betrothed pair violates their oath or breaks honor and either rages out of turn or breaks the law.  One of the two pieces of the stick, the one declared to be the person in violation of the law, is thrown into a fire and burned.  The person who broke with honor is declared a wayward and not allowed to be in church and is considered a wild animal.  Waywards can voluntarily be put back through Trakia again, or they can be driven outside of Thortinis and left, or they can be held captive until they are able to prove themselves again.
Rewards:
The dunel are allowed to learn their trades, to read and write, and to eventually get married.

Stage: Rēsel, which is a head of a household.
Age: Typically this is around 18-20.
Physical Milestone:
1.  Well, two kunjels are married.  They establish a household together and sexual intercourse causes them to be physically bonded together.  Kunjels are not much for cheating on each other, though it can happen.  They are typically rather chaste.  Kunjels do not like to be subject to circumstances.
2.  They will usually begin having children soon after.
3.  They are, at this time, allowed to grow out a beard (the males).
4.  They are at their peak physical condition.
Mental Milestones:
1.  Absolute control of the rage.
2.  Civility and honor are upheld.
3.  They begin having contact with priests/esses on a one-to-one basis to confess dishonor quietly.  If they have done something wrong, they confess it and the priest explains how they may be restored to honor again and be protected by the Protector again.  Of course, they can do this before and often do.
4.  Will probably spend more time in the Thoughtroom than before.
Cultural Milestones:
1.  Are allowed to boss around anyone of a lesser rank than themselves, so long as they are not telling anyone to do wrong deeds.
2.  Determine when their children do what and reach what milestones.
3.  Are the lords and absolute rulers of their household.  Inside a kunjels house, the Rēsel have the power of even life and death over anyone who comes inside.  Yes, they can kill if necessary to protect their home, their children, and their things.  They can even hold court of a type inside their homes.
4.  They are primary teachers to their children and they are absolutely and ultimately held accountable for their children.
5.  They maintain this title until such time as they take the title Sārēs(īa/or).

The title of Sārēs is one that is given to the elders of a particular community.  You could call these people the deacons of a church, and often as not they become teachers, scholars, clerks, and etc.  They are supported by their families, but they do not stay with their families.  Instead, they represent their families in the town government and are allowed to basically retire until such time as they pass on.  Kunjels live a long, long time, and so they are not allowed to take this title until certain conditions are met:
1.  All of their children are Rēsel.
2.  They maintain honor.
3.  Their parents are not still alive.
4.  They have more than one child.
5.  They have some physical limitations that keep them from their normal trade.

The Elders of a village are often teachers and guides and helpers.  They do things around town, make things, train others, and whatever they can physically handle.  Kunjels are encouraged by honor to stay as active as possible for as long as possible.  It is not pleasant or good for a kunjel to fall so ill they can do nothing, and often that will bring on a desire for an honorable death.  Some older kunjels will actually go a-wandering, and many Kunjels will not chase them down if they choose to do that.

So, this is what I have for now.  Will return later with other Kunjel things, I guess and hope.