#Harehaenun

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Since I update so sporadically (and haven’t actually ever linked to it, despite vagueblogging it constantly), I thought I’d mention that I updated Austen’s Aldish Abomination this evening.

She’s a queer beast of a thing, currently sitting pretty at 67k words and just having tied up the first arc with a pretty, wedding-shaped bow. I’m about to dive into the second half of the adventure (?)

If anyone is looking for a slow burn romance and setting exploration in Alderode, I submit This, but please beware untagged warnings for just about anything Unsounded might be warned for and the mind the tagged gore.

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have there been many fictional aldish caste ocs or new hypothetical caste designs by wrights? e.g. uranium caste? sapphire caste?

If so what’s the most common attributes for them?

Haha, nope. The closest would be the Plat/Silver mix that the famous duellist Harehaenun boasted. You can read about him in the third print volume.

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How common are Waekhe? What are some of the abilities they’ve been documented having? Are the result of a glitch in the Damakhert or of some deliberate fuckery by the parents?

Waekhe are rare, considered mutants, and generally have nothing special going on but mottled skin and hair or physical deformities. But sometimes you get someone who appears to be maybe a Silver, but they have the same pymaric abilities as a highly gifted Plat, with perhaps ameliorative casting so strong they are incapable of raising agitation even when they intentionally try. Or you'll get someone with doubled or tripled khert ports up and down their arms who casts like a fire hose going off.

Of course Harehaenun of Durlyne is a famous Waekhe, and a duelling champion because of it. Read about him in the third print volume.

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Don’t talk to me or my horse girl himbo son ever again

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Actually since I asked about Duane earlier, do any of the characters have any interesting yet irrelevant scars that we can't see?

Duane has superficial scars all over, from boyhood scuffles, from hotheaded duels (Harehaenun left an assortment of burns), from slipping on icy pavement after staying out too late drinking. He also has a scar over his heart as all Aldish wrights do from his riting ceremony. They stick a hot dagger through the skin there to "open one's soul to the khert" because Alds are kinda weird.

Sette's lips are scarred from constantly nicking them on her preternaturally sharp teeth. If we were ever going to do a liveaction Unsounded I'd insist on this detail!

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What became of Harehaenun? Did he marry, or stay a bachelor? Was he from a wealthy Silver ghers? What does one do with that kind of money and fame in Alderode, especially if they aren’t of that kind of ghers? What does society generally think of duelling wrights, and is it different in the home social world than the general country’s perception of celebrity? Who even matchmakes with someone like *gestures at everything going on there*?

It must be a very lonely life that Harehaenun is living. I imagine him alone in a fine manor on White Hill outside the demesne of any ghers, unable to trust anyone because they only want either his money, his endorsement, or his duelling skills for their own cause. His parents are both dead, probably his mother lived a miserable life of scandal and suspicion after giving birth to such a strange mixed caste baby, leaving Harehaenun bitter towards the system and branded a bastard, for all his celebrity and skill. He’s a novelty, and a champion, and the upper crust certainly enjoys having him at their dinner parties the same way they’d set out a beautifully wrought set of salt and pepper shakers - but very few people would be willing to give him their daughter.

So matchmaking is an interesting question. It could be he’s content to stay a bachelor, too distrusting of anyone else and uncertain what kind of children a union would produce anyway, thanks to his strange genes. Maybe he’s a fixture in the brothels, or has an illegitimate partner he supports on the sly; or maybe he just doesn’t care and has a partner that lives with him in the open! Since he’s a celebrity and a genetic weirdo it could be that he gets away with things a normal person wouldn’t. People can handwave it away with the attitude: “Well, of course he’s doing that; he’s him!”

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What would happen to an Aldish man who just refused masculinity? Like, straight up said nah and skirted up? Since I’m guessing it’s a pretty negative answer, how does that change when said person is someone with something major backing them, like someone with Harehaenun’s pymaric skill or the Foi-Hellicks’ wealth and political power, or Bastion’s scary, shady connections?

I think you probably know the answer :) Rigid communities are never kind to anyone who breaks norms for any reason. These people are otherized, ostracized, rejected, and ejected. We’ve seen it. Roger Foi-Hellick’s money and power didn’t save him, and he made his family pay dearly for their rejection.

Harehaenun could flout whatever social convention he wanted, and no one could physically beat him up for it for sure, but they could toss him out of the duelling circuit, bar him from duelling at all. He could be ejected from his ghers, disowned by his family, barred from the Gefendur church.

Still, we’ll meet a lot of misfits when we get back to Alderode. The misfits are most fun.

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Who's Harehaenun? \:0

Character from a story in the third print volume.

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The Bronze wright question anon says we have seen a svary good wright from all the other castes (sans Copper). But I'm blanking on a scary good Silver weight. Have I forgotten someone?

They could be counting Sarthos from “Interior Emanations” or Harehaenun from the extra story in volume 3.

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changing your hair color is a big no in alderode, but if someone was a caste anomaly like harehaenun with weird coloration, would a tasteful pymaric to make them look more like their legal caste be allowed? they'd still feel off, but it might make them less visually jarring. or do they have no choice but to stick out like a sore thumb?

Honestly people would expect them to pick one caste or the other and “fix” their appearance to fit in. Aldish castes like their homogeneity. So yes, in that situation a glamour or even actual dye if they couldn’t afford that would be encouraged. Harehaenun was not approved of. Even Adelier Sr. was pressured by the ghers elders to do something about Lem’s uncommon yellow eyes when he was a kid. Fortunately Lem and Duane’s grandfather told them to eff off. In a polite Aldish way. And everyone was a little scared of Grandpa Adelier so that was that.

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what happens to people like harehaenun when they're born? do they get to stay with their families, or have any contact with them at all? what caste are they legally?

Harehaenun must have caused a hell of a stir when he was born. He has a legit khert mutation, but that had to be determined by a lot of wrights. The immediate assumption you’d make is that mom had slept around, you know? That wasn’t the case, but it took a lot of shouting and study to convince people.

Harehaenun is legally a Silver, and was raised in a ghers with his Silver parents. Must have had a rough childhood though. I wish he and Duane could have gone out for beers after, I think they would have hit it off.

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Who's Harehaenun, please? He sounds awfully interesting...

He’s a character from the bonus story in the third print book!

That story is an excellent source if you want more about Alderode. So are the prose stories over here, in particular Interior Emanations, which is almost a direct prequel to Chapter 14.

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Hi Ashley! I have two burning questions: 1) what the heck is Harehaenun from vol. 3? He is so freaky. Are we going to meet anyone like him? 2) in my mind, Ruck sounds like Joji Nakata as Alucard or Gankutsuou, turned up to 11. Is that a reasonable assumption?

Harehaenun is a weird little hiccup of the Aldish khert. He wound up being born between two castes, so he has the abilities of a Plat but the slightly less appalling lifespan of a Silver. And some cool colouration. He’s still alive, it’s certainly possibly he could pop up later, it just wouldn’t be in a major role ;) We’ll see!

Man, Joji Nakata has such a great voice… If you want your Ruck extra sexy, he’d be the way to go. He might even sound interesting speaking English with a heavy Japanese accent. I support this!

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Got my volume 3 and I LOVED the Kiss Fist Baxter tale! And I think I really love duelling! I had been imagining it was really stuffy but it almost felt like pro wrestling the way the crowd was acting and I like how it's at the same time flexible but regulated. It's a nice mix of skill and luck! Do you think we'll see some matches in the comic?

Hey, I’m so glad you enjoyed it!

Duelling is kind of hysterical because some guy can throw a dagger into the ring and it’s actually legal for a wright to use it. And in the story you had Baxter and Harehaenun almost setting the entire city on fire and incinerating the crowd yet everyone was still having a blast. There are so many people injured and even killed at duelling matches but that just makes it even cooler to enthusiasts! The crowd is so very important to the duellists and the match, and they know it.

Will we see it in the comic? We might, we might. I might use a big duelling festival as a setting for some plot action. But that’s way down the rode.

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Who is Harehaenun?

A character in a story in the back of Volume 3.