#tor worldbuilding

[contes-de-rheio]

For the wip title game: I'm very intrigued by The Living Library! That sounds very cool and I don't think I've heard about it before!

I may have mentioned it in passing, but it would have been very easy to miss.

The setting comes from the influence of xianxia dramas I watched (including The Untamed and Word of Honor), except for the core concept of the Living Library. I've wrote a few scenes, including what would be the epilogue, but I don't intend to develop it beyond what it is, because my understanding of Chinese culture is limited, and seen through the prisms of Japanese and Korean cultures. In short, it would require a ton of research, which I'll never have the time for. But I'll detail here the main bones of the story.

The Living Library is a being born from concentrated magic. It exists in a specific location, but no one seems to remember where its siege actually is. In any case, it still can manifest itself in a number of libraries, and always take the form of a young lady made of clay (though notably taller than any human being). The libraries in question are all set in the mountains around a vast valley, and under the watch of "cultivators", whose clans are more or less allied together. The Living Library is precious because it can store every written (or drawned) document that comes in its circle of influence, which is extremely wide (trace a circle that would fully encompass Mongolia and you'll get the idea).

As for the story, everything started with an Emperor who wanted to become immortal. He sent his armies to find the Living Library, conquering a ton of land and destroying many lives. He also set to destroy any other being made of concentrated magic, mainly to disrupt the way of life of the people from conquered lands and guarantee his undisputed authority. At some point, the Living Library decides it's enough, and seeks the help of the one living person she knows to be able to create new beings like her. It just happens to be a retired general who served that emperor.

The epilogue takes place when that general, now a very old man, rebirth the last being the Living Library instructed him to.

In addition to the cultivators and the emperor's army and court, the people of the valley are also mentioned. We never see them, but, since consider foreigners who come on their land as trespassers, they set violent magical traps to keep people at bay. Obviously, my characters, despite their initial intentions, end up forced to cross over the valley, and face a number of these traps, including a river that goes like that scene in lotr:

To end this, I'd like to mention that even without the influence of xianxia, the Living Library would feel best fit for a setting influenced by Chinese culture, as records compiled by Chinese dynasties have been a tremendous source of historical information.

[contes-de-rheio]

Some magic vows are deeply binding in Tales of Rheio universe. The way you word the vow, while invoking the names of gods (Astrallyé and Wido mainly), can have huge consequences as to how you may break them or not. Only the Oath Breaker, a sorcerer who became a godess, could break an unbreakable vow, but she doesn't grant her favor just because one asks.

Kain Fontaine once pronounced an unbreakable vow linking himself to Feid Familier and any of her legitimate heirs, knowing perfectly he wasn't linking himself just to her blood relatives, but to anyone she would see as a "legitimate heir" of hers. Also, the vow may bind him beyond his own death (I haven't decided yet if it will).

Lenandel also pronounced a vow of loyalty to Trélyse Charlevis, his queen, while he was her acting regent as she was on the battle front. Only Trélyse or death could release him.

Unbreakable vows, in general, but especially when they reduce a sorcerer to serve someone else's will, are taboo, forbidden or seen as a deviant act among most cultures. The risk of magic being misused as a consequence is a rightful fear, as history has shown. The Oath Breaker got her name from breaking oath which were rendering a sorcerer ever so powerful. The only way to vanquish them was to first break the oaths.

Are there binding vows or sacred oaths in your world?

@worldbuildingwedasks

[milkydraws8]

The Houses of Krypton

[quirkycatsfatstacks]

Review: The Book of Ile-Rein by Martha Wells

The Book of Ile-Rein: The Element of Fire & The Death of the NecromancerAuthor: Martha WellsPublisher: Tor.comReleased: February 27, 2024Received: OwnFind it on Goodreads | More Fantasy The Book of Ile-Rein is actually two books: The Element of Fire and The Death of the Necromancer. If you’re a Martha Wells fan, this republishing is not something you’ll want to skip. I promise. I’ll break down…

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Seven Covers in Seven Days: UNTETHERED SKY by Fonda Lee.

tagged by: @asexualbookbird

Every day post the cover of a book you love and tag someone to do the same!

tagging: @torbooks

[gronglegrowth]

Magic is a force that several people are able to harness, calling upon a connection to some significant place, known as a Source. In Gharnach this is Wyrd'shal. Magic users go by several names depending on their school and culture.

Magic is capable of many feats, as it alters reality (in ways that reality knows about and, most importantly, allows) such that the caster’s will is, usually, obliged, if the methods are correct.

A clear goal and a connection to a Source is not enough - a mage also requires to give of themselves, in the form of their own mental energy, or more commonly a substitute, generated and extracted from rithic, a mythical gemstone which appears only in the ruins of Sources. The more energy you supply, the easier it is for reality to realign itself - the heavy lifting is your job, not its.

There are several ways, called schools, that one can perform magic. Here are the most common ones.

Bladecasting is the art of imbuing magic into weaponry, forming a bond with your weapon and using it to channel your spells. Bladecasters draw upon times of war and conflict in their Source.

The cutting word is that of perfectly forged phrases, each one for a specific purpose, a surgical implement with which you cut, and therefore change. Knife speakers draw upon transitional periods in their Source.

Spellmasonry goes by several names, but it is the scholar's work, the most akin to wizardry as one can get. Runes, sigils, and strange phrases all written on scrolls, patterns drawn with nary a thought across the mind's eye.... These casters draw upon the golden ages of their Source.

[gloriousmonsters]

'the john carter movie is going to become a cult classic'

'it's an underrated gem'

'it's remarkably faithful to the source material'

'i liked the books and thoroughly enjoyed it!'

[spyglassrealms]

For those of you wondering what "tor" means and why I use it: it's a fictional oath I made for Sphaera!

Watsonian explanation: "tor," often used in conjugation as "snowing tor," derives from the name of the Temoran underworld and is grammatically used equivalent to "hell." "Snowing tor" is an emphasis modifier -it could never snow in tor, thus the phrase is used primarily to express incredulity.

Doylist explanation: "tor" is derived from "torrid," since the underworld is a hot place, but it also has a more entertaining meta origin: the Rush song By-Tor and the Snow Dog! I've been a fan of Rush for a good decade now and their music has influenced the development of Sphaera -in particular its mythos. The Prince of Hell in that song is called By-Tor, so I interpreted it as a title and took the "tor" half as the name of hell.

[thebookbin]

A Half-Built Garden

Ruthanna Emrys

Publisher: Tor Genre: scifi, first contact Year: 2022

Seanan McGuire is always right. This book is a masterpiece.

This is the best first-contact novel I have ever read��including Strangers in a Strange Land—precisely because of it's scope and its confrontation of our deepest ignored fears. The people on earth are dealing with the brutal consequences of climate change. This is a post-apocalyptic novel unlike any other, and I could write essays on the set-up of this novel, the rest of the plot notwithstanding.

Emrys imagines a world where Nation-States are slow and clunky, and the corporations have been limited to the islands of Zealand where they can no longer do damage. The rest of the world is managed through the watersheds, a community based organizational system upheld by technology and algorithms. It's basically like a phone and reddit but implanted in your brain. All decisions about ecology are made as a community, with expertise given more weight.

This is also a world of post-gender ideology. People raise children in groups of four, usually two couples who join together to be a household. Judy, the main character, and her wife Carol have a daughter Dory, and they coparent with Atheo—a transman who escaped barbaric religious gender discrimination,—and Dinar, an amputee journalist from Zealand. They too have a toddler: Raven.

First of all, just the daily life of these people interacting with each other was so wholesome. It is exactly what I want from the universe. Sentences like "Carol and I still hadn't decided if we were going to be lovers with our co-parents" are possible.

So all this ecology and scifi and fascinating family dynamics are abruptly interrupted when aliens arrive! They are here to save humanity from our dying planet. Only problem? The watersheds aren't willing to give up the planet. The corporations are eager to leave the planet behind, and the Nation-States don't know what they think, but they'll probably get around to it in a month or two.

The beginning is the pivotal point of the novel, when an anomaly in the Chesapeake has Judy and Carol going to check it out in the middle of the night, bringing Dory with them. When they meet the aliens with Dory along for the ride, they spark an interplanetary negotiation about the future of their planet.

Someone blurbed this novel and compared Emrys to Ursula K. LeGuin and I think that couldn't be more correct. In this novel you get to witness two wives flirt outrageously with an alien and eventually have sexytimes with it. You get to witness how the corporate world has weaponized gender presentation, by making it a shifting game that changes with their subtle signals (honestly the most realistic thing about this besides the devastating climate change is the idea that capitalism will eventually ruin pronouns). Which means neopronouns. Lots of neopronouns. All while trying to learn the culture of two symbiotic alien races and at the same time arguing for the future of earth, without pissing of your wife, your alien boyfriend, or your coparents.

While I really loved the book and it's introspective nature and its inherently optimistic view of the world even in the midst of climate disaster, I found Judy to be optimistic to the point of naiveté. There are speeches that are a bit cringeworthy. Part of me wants to argue that in this future with this democratic view of conflict resolution, they are optimistic about the world. But while the watersheds argue so fiercely for the planet, I think the explorer in me wants to explore space. And the aliens have a really interesting philosophy: once any species is sufficiently technologically advanced, they can't live on a planet as they will inevitably destroy it. So they build systems of habitats in space. I don't know if I fully subscribe to that belief, but the same way Judy judges the aliens for "abandoning" their world, I also think Judy is too narrowminded in her thought processes. She refuses to entertain that humanity partially moving to space could be good for both humanity and the planet, and for that, I'm knocking off half a star.

storygraph | bookshop.org | local houston

★★★★½ poly trans-species found-family in space stars

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Reference: Topographical Elements

Ideas for Naming your Fictional Places

Buildings and stones brough, burton, caster, church, cross, kirk, mill, minster, stain, stone, wark ⚜ Examples: Crossthwaite, Felixkirk, Newminster, Staines, Whitchurch

Coastline features ey, holme, hulme, hythe, naze, ness, port, sea ⚜ Examples: Bardsey, Greenhithe, Sheerness, Southport, Southsea

Dwellings and farms barton, berwick, biggin, bold, by, cote, ham, hampstead, hamton, house, scale, sett, stall, thorpe, toft, ton, wick ⚜ Examples: Fishwick, Newham, Potterton, Westby, Woodthorpe

Fields and clearings combe, croft, den, ergh, field, ham, haugh, hay, ing, land, lease, lock, meadow, rick, ridding, rode, shot, side, thwaite, wardine, worth, worthy ⚜ Examples: Applethwaite, Cowden, Smallworthy, Southworth, Wethersfield

General locations and routes bridge, ford, gate, ing, mark, path, stead, stoke, stow, street, sty, way ⚜ Examples: Epping, Horsepath, Longford, Ridgeway, Stonebridge, Streetly

Hills and slopes bank, barrow, borough, breck, cam, cliff, crook, down, edge, head, hill, how, hurst, ley, ling, lith, mond, over, pen, ridge, side, tor ⚜ Examples: Barrow, Blackdown, Longridge, Redcliff, Thornborough, Windhill

Rivers and streams batch, beck, brook, burn, ey, fleet, font, ford, keld, lade, lake, latch, marsh, mere, mouth, ore, pool, rith, wade, water, well ⚜ Examples: Broadwater, Fishlake, Mersey, Rushbrooke, Saltburn

Woods and groves bear, carr, derry, fen, frith, greave, grove, heath, holt, lea, moor, oak, rise, scough, shaw, tree, well, with, wold, wood ⚜ Examples: Blackheath, Hazlewood, Oakley, Southwold, Staplegrove

Valleys and hollows bottom, clough, combe, dale, den, ditch, glen, grave, hole, hope, slade ⚜ Examples: Cowdale, Denton, Greenslade, Hoole, Longbottom, Thorncombe

NOTE

These elements are all found in many different spellings. Old English beorg ‘hill, mound’, for example, turns up as bar-, berg-, -ber, -berry, -borough, and -burgh. Only one form is given above (Thornborough).

Several items have the same form, but differ in meaning because they come from different words in Old English. For example, -ey has developed in different ways from the two words ea ‘river’ and eg ‘island’. It is not always easy deciding which is the relevant meaning in a given place name.

This resource does not distinguish between forms which appear in different parts of a place name. Old English leah ‘forest, glade’, for example, sometimes appears at the beginning of a name (Lee- or Leigh-), sometimes at the end (-leigh, -ley), and sometimes alone (Leigh) (K. Cameron, 1961).

Source ⚜ More: Word Lists ⚜ Notes & References ⚜ Worldbuilding

[contes-de-rheio]

4 calendars. I'll explain, because I know it's a lot.

When I created the first calendar, I researched a bit about calendars, how they work(ed), what logic was behind it, why do we use lunar or lunisolar calendars... and also learned how beginning of the year was changed, with a lot of people using the beginning of spring (either the equinox or the first spring month). This made me think about how different cultures use different calendars and how it would apply in my universe.

I also came to the conclusion that a year length should be somewhere between 360 and 370 days, if you don't want to then blow up your own referential for people's age. Otherwise, a 25-years-old character in your universe, may well be younger or older than that, and the older your characters are in universe, the bigger the difference is.

Anyway, my first two calendars, Astralone's and Aqualos's, are basically the same. Same names for months, length of year, weeks... They just start at different points (winter and summer). Some of the details are covered here. They're lunisolar, with months length based on one moon cycle, and the weeks equal to a 1/3 of the other one's (yup, I have 2 moons, which could have fucked up other things, but my research was inconclusive for reasons beyond the subject of this post). Leap years are also a thing... I'll need to check my notes to remember how exactly they work, but I think there's a leap month every x years.

Then Jamaedo's starts in spring, it should look very closely like the two previous ones in terms of year length, but I'm not sure about the rest yet. The reason is Jamaedo is on a different continent, and some of its isles situated very close to the polar circle. Spring becomes the moment when the world is rebirthed, and thus the most important season.

Finally, there's Niensheria's, which is a lunar calendar. From my research, I came to understand lunar calendars were mostly used by cultures located in between the tropics (or very close to them). The logic is that following the sun doesn't make as much sense as for other culture, since the impact of seasons is lowered. A good example of this is the calendar used by Muslims.

Other things can be considered in how you manage time, including the numbers of hours per day, and minutes per hours. We're using a base-60 system, but we inherited it from Babylon. The base of 12 (months, kinda hours...) is generally linked to the zodiac, which is why you can find something similar in European, Middle-Eastern and Asian cultures. But you could imagine, a zodiac with more or less than 12 animals/houses, though you should keep a link to the star and/or religious beliefs as it seems to be a common characteristic.

How old are my characters in the Dragons of Jamaedo?

Apparently, I never established it 🥲 I’m going to need the info though, because the age difference between Mihee and her little brother indirectly plays a role in her motivation to rebel.

I’m pretty sure the reason I didn’t officially age my characters yet is because I need to place the story in the global timeline of Tales of Rheio and… I’m scared of shooting a bullet in my foot with how it’s placed in relation to the other stories.

Do yourself a favor, guys: don’t create an ever growing universe lol

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 10/29/2024

new boot goofin. also a great book for the cowboyblogger crew and TWO cat photos

listening

afterimage by JUSTICE and Rimon was on a spotify autogenerated dance playlist and it is So soothing to my brain. sometimes described as heavy metal disco, it itches the same brain scratch as daft punk's interstella 5555. comforting and familiar road trip music where the road trips are in spaceships with a sort of clunky engine thrumming away in the background. you know that extremely early ass o clock in the morning road trip feel where it's very pale and a little misty out and you're only sort of awake? i feel like this is a very different kind of road trip music animal than than late-night road trip music. it's pulling you out the door. it's for beginnings, not for very tired almost-ends.

-

reading

thank you mackie. very reading heavy week. im tryign to redirect myself into library books instead of election doomscrolling and im trying to read more physical books bc i have a tremendous pile of shit i genuinely do want to read and almost none of it is on my phone. first we'll talk about Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard, from randomly perusing the library stacks. really really really fucking loved this one.

Award-winning author of The Red Scholar’s Wake Aliette de Bodard comes for your heart with a compelling tale of love, duty, and found-family in an exciting new space opera that brings xianxia-style martial arts to the stars. Jockeying navigator clans guide spaceships through the Hollows: an area of space populated by the mysterious but deadly creatures known as Tanglers. When a Tangler escapes the Hollows for the first time in living memory, each clan must send a representative to help capture it—but the mission may be doomed and the hearts of two clan juniors may be in danger too.

first off: this isn't fucking found family. this is a group of coworkers. tor dot com loves to slap found family on anything gay.

politics is about control and inter-group dynamic politics are also about control. and grappling for control in your life when you grow up in a Young Leadership program. i really liked this, one of the least annoying examples of someone getting overstimulated and needing to lie down in a dark quiet room and how hanging out with some people does not impair rest and hanging out with some people is extremely extremely draining. the love interest is what if lee van cleef was a young vietnamese woman in the far future who can navigate faster than light travel.

very snappy little 160-pg novella that does not overstay its welcome. packs a genuinely surprising amount of worldbuilding and character work into its pages: i have a lot of trouble with ensemble casts post-Covid and keeping everyone straight (especially in hard copy form where I can’t easily search a book) but everyone is a fully formed person here and i had no trouble keeping everyone straight in my head. i will be asking my siblings to acquire a physical copy for me for christmas. i love a fucked up political mystery with spacewalks and space monsters.

the lead, nhi, reminded me a lot of friends at the table's brnine, a self-sacrificing perfectionist fish. hope that's useful information to all three of you i have bullied into listening to fatt

The Shabti by Megaera C. Lorenz. this finally came off my holds, hat tip to i think someone else's tuesdaypost? cannot immediately locate it. holler if it was you.

Can you flimflam a ghost? It’s 1934. Former medium Dashiel Quicke travels the country debunking spiritualism and false mediums while struggling to stay ahead of his ex-business partner and lover who wants him back at any cost. During a demonstration at a college campus, Dashiel meets Hermann Goschalk, an Egyptologist who’s convinced that he has a genuine haunted artifact on his hands. Certain there is a rational explanation for whatever is going on with Hermann’s relics, Dashiel would rather skip town, but soon finds himself falling for Hermann. He agrees to take a look after all and learns that something is haunting Hermann’s office indeed. Faced with a real ghost Dashiel is terrified, but when the haunting takes a dangerous turn, he must use the tools of the shady trade he left behind to communicate with this otherworldly spirit before his past closes in.

this keeps getting reviewed as cozy horror, which i do not agree with bc i hate the term and believe it oxymoronic. it is a fairly straightforward romance with paranormal shit happening in the foreground. a period piece not particularly for the folx end of the fag/folx gay book spectrum-- they happen to be gay but there's a lot of other shit happening. not a spicy romance as the tiktok girlies say. it is a period book that sort of elides over the worst parts of the 30s? eg there is no on-page or overt racism or antisemitism that the characters have to Confront. one of the lead's neighbors is a black nurse trying to start a NAACP chapter, but she's so fully fleshed out and such an enjoyable character it doesn't feel like the book is looking for moral points from modern readers. i also liked the general slow-build of the book and their relationship — i have no complaints about the intensity or pace of their relationship.

the one ding i have is that it is perhaps a touch too enthusiastic about period slang. it's fine when the two leads are talking to each other, especially bc their word choice is a large way they show their personality, but when there are more than two people in a scene it can grate a little for me. i do think the dialogue is generally the strong suit here, and the author particularly excels at two-person back and forths, so it’s not a frequent complaint.

i liked the contrast of the scam medium with the academic egyptologist, since many egyptologists were also scams. the scenes with the spirit are genuinely eerie, which is a very good contrast with the fairly straightforward, often sparse narration.

grudging respect for keeping a joke simmering on the back burner for four hundred pages before deploying it. this was a well-paced read i have no major complaints about.

i have to spin this book around in my brain and get a physical copy and flip back and forth and lot and make notes to myself in a separate notebook before i talk about this one here i think. same brain itch as a canticle for leibowitz.

i also read a bunch of comics but this section is already long enough goodbye

-

watching

the first episode of the currently airing penguin tv show! at my bestie's house bc she has an hbo max subscription from something, unfortunately it is an emotionally fraught very tense show and we're kind of full up on those so i will have to finish this on my own. at no point did i say to myself "whoa that's colin farrell". both the prosthetic and accent work are off the charts.

i do Not like a piece of media about the mob. i will stomach it for batman. it's really wild how the accents they've chosen for gotham and her suburbs make me so so so weirdly homesick. one of the locations is an early McMansion and my bestie and i said almost simultaneously "are we in fucking Cherry Hill???" a jersey noveau riche town infested with notable McMansions.

i am constantly chasing the high of s1 black sails where everyone is frantically scheming and falling all over them fucking selves. this gets pretty close! it's big budget prestige tv with the storytelling chops to match so far. one of my favorite comic runs is The Long Halloween, partially about the fortunes of the Maroni and Falcone crime families of Gotham. this is loosely following that, but deviates enough to surprise me, which i enjoy. there have been enough faithful adaptations of that comic run imo.

optimistic about the rest of the season! i have such low expectations for batman media that it's refreshing to get like a genuinely good pilot episode out of the franchise.

-

playing

i have Got to find a new game to play that i already own. genshin is such a good podcast game but i need Something New. surely the 576047357649857689 games across five libraries will save me.

-

making

so many things happened this week. cat neuter and constipation episode. helped take apart and put back together a children's' room. lot of running around.

crunchy! i almost left these docs at goodwill bc i don't have a super high opinion of the company or the quality of the boots. i have heard my ENTIRE life about how long-lasting they are and how people have had the same boots for years but i completely shredded a pair during eight months in 2019. like the soles were worn almost completely smooth to the point they were a slipping hazard, half the eyelets were broken, and the leather was genuinely disintegrating. that was one of the busiest and most active periods of my life (classes at other campuses both semesters, a summer in new hampshire, the beginning of the makerspace) but i did expect them to hold up a little better or a little longer. they only got to experience about a month and a half of salt at the beginning and were regularly cleaned. yes i did buy them straight from the company.

anyway. these extremely ugly docs industrials had almost all their tread and magically fit me. like the rest of me, my feet are large and wide and difficult to fit. they are by Far the ugliest shoes i have ever owned. however. they will be the boots i will wear for when i need to be okay about potentially destroying my footwear.

hit em with some saddle soap and polished the toes, i seem to be flat out of leather conditioner so i was only able to hit the heels and one tongue. the laces are in the warsh.

they're real leather and were twelve dollars and miraculously fit me. you know that quote about americans being temporarily embarrassed millionaires? i still, in many ways, think of myself as a temporarily embarrassed abled person. i am slowly giving up on the idea of another remote job, bc they seem to all be fake, and going harder on city and county jobs. while i would rather wear my beloved CAT steel toes with the nice padded cuffs any day of the week, maybe these will be good for tromping around somewhere inspecting something. would Love a weights and measures inspection job if their office would return my polite messages.

also ruby goes home tonight! goodbye ruby!

[duxbelisarius]

Dune At Home: The First Dornish War, Part One

This is a project I've had on the backburner ever since I finished my Military Analysis of the Dance. I mentioned in my analysis of the Velaryon Blockade that I plan to rewrite the Dance series at some point, in light of the research and further reading I've done into the subject of pre-modern warfare. One can look at this new series focused on the First Dornish War as essentially a trial run for the rewrite, but my reasons for analyzing this war in particular go far beyond that.

The First Dornish War was the largest conflict fought by the Seven Kingdoms following unification, while its outcome cast a long shadow over the history of Westeros and the Targaryen Dynasty. There's Rhaenys' death and the affect it has on her family, the recurrent desire of future monarchs to conquer Dorne and succeed where Aegon failed, to say nothing of the way in which the events of the war have influenced and continue to influence the plot of the main ASOIAF books. While F&B only devotes 10 pages to the war as compared to the 200 taken up by the Dance, the importance of the First Dornish War far exceeds it's limited coverage, and we can probably expect to learn more about it in TWOW, ADOS, and the Aegon's Conquest series planned by HBO. This more than justifies analyzing the First Dornish War and the extent to which it is consistent with George's own worldbuilding and what we know about Medieval and Early Modern war.

This first part of the series will assess the Dornish worldbuilding, what information we have about its people, geography, environment and society as a whole. The purpose of doing this is to establish a baseline of what we can know or reasonably infer about Dorne from what the books tell us, which can then be compared to how Dorne is portrayed in F&B during the First Dornish War. I also recommend checking out the Dornish installments of the Politics of the Seven Kingdoms series written by the late Steven Attewell of Race for the Iron Throne; if you want a second opinion or more detail, his series is absolutely worth your while!

Atlas of Ice and Fire estimates that Dorne's size is approximately 328 472 square miles, using a similar process to TWOIAF editor Elio Garcia; this makes Dorne slightly smaller than Pakistan (340 509 square miles) and slightly larger than the former French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, c.290 000 square miles). Atlas estimates a population of c.3 million in Dorne at the time of the ASOIAF series with his calculations again using methods similar to Elio, but the population may easily be lesser or greater than these extrapolations. Unfortunately the demographics of Planetos are a mess at best, and Dorne's population and that of the Seven Kingdoms should in theory be much smaller at the time of the First Dornish War.

ADWD's map of the south and TWOIAF's map of Dorne identify 16 and 17 populated locations in Dorne respectively, excluding Ghaston Grey, the Tower of Joy, Vulture's Roost and the Water Gardens. 7 of these settlements are located in the Red Mountains, aka the Dornish Marches: Starfall, High Hermitage, Blackmont, Skyreach, Kingsgrave, Wyl and Yronwood. Dorne is divided into eastern and western halves south of the mountains, with the eastern half beginning in the hills around the source of the Vaith and Scourge rivers and extending to the Broken Arm, and Dorne's western half comprising mostly desert save for the sulfurous Brimstone River. The aforementioned maps show only two settlements in western Dorne, Sandstone and Hellholt, while the remaining 7-8 settlements are located in Eastern Dorne: Vaith, Salt Shore, Lemonwood, Sunspear, Ghost Hill, Godsgrace, The Tor and Planky Town. All of the settlements in eastern Dorne are located directly beside the Vaith, Scourge and Greenblood Rivers or to the north of them, save for Salt Shore on Dorne's southern coast.

These dispositions reflect what we know about the settlement patterns of Dorne's past from TWOIAF: the majority of the First Men settled in the Greenblood valley or the Red Mountains, with the Daynes, Fowlers and Yronwoods settling in the latter area and the Wades, Shells and many more settling by the former. Only the unnamed Lords of the Wells ventured into the western deserts, and these were a minority. Only with the arrival of the Andals do we know of named houses settling in the west, House Uller and Qorgyle, while the Martells, Allyrions, Jordaynes, Santagars and Vaiths settled in the east along the northern coast and in the river valleys. When the Rhoynar arrived in Dorne and finally settled they mainly stayed in the east near the coast and the river valleys, further cementing the Red Mountains and eastern Dorne as the most populous areas of the country.

The distribution of Dorne's population is also consistent with the information we have about it's geography and climate. George's inspirations for Dorne in this regard were Spain and Palestine, and Morocco also fits the bill, being regions where summers are hot and dry and winters are cool and wet. These areas also have the bulk of their population situated along the coast and in the major river valleys, which is again consistent with George's worldbuilding. More than three-quarters of the land south of the Red Mountains is arid wasteland according to TWOIAF, with the bulk of this land being flat save for the hills at the source of the Greenblood and it's tributaries, and a small mountain range between The Tor and Ghost Hill on Dorne's northern coast. Dorne's southern coast is some 400 leagues/c.1200 miles long according to Rodrick Harlaw, and is largely barren outside of Salt Shore with few sources of fresh water for passing ships to utilize.

It should also come as no surprise that Dorne's population distribution coincides with those areas with an abundance of fresh water, for consumption and agricultural purposes. Eastern Dorne is mostly scrubland with hard, rocky soil that relies heavily upon the Greenblood for irrigation; alongside the Brimstone and Torrentine, the Greenblood is the only river which does not dry up during any season. Potential sources of fresh water in the Red Mountains include the Torrentine and Wyl Rivers as well as an unnamed river that ends near Yronwood, alongside groundwater from wells and rain/meltwater collected from streams, springs and cisterns. Due to the Brimstone being sulfurous, fresh water in western Dorne comes primarily from wells, watering holes and oases.

The result of Dorne's varied geography, climate and population distribution a history of political division and the emergence of Dornish subcultures following Nymeria's wars. The Rhoynar arrived in Dorne less than 700 years before Aegon's Conquest, following the destruction of the Rhoynar Principalities by the Valyrian Freehold, prior to which the First Men and Andals had warred with each other and their Reacher and Stormlord neighbours for millenia. Nymeria and her people spent more than four years in the area of the Summer Sea before arriving in Dorne and allying with Mors Martell, and it took more than a decade to unify the Dornish lands. Four Dornish subcultures emerged in the centuries after the Rhoynar settled, known to us from the ASOIAF books and TWOIAF as the Stoney, Sandy and Salty Dornish, and the Orphans of the Greenblood.

The Orphans have a small population that lives on poleboats in the Greenblood valley and near Planky Town, and retain the language and gods of the Rhoynar, while the Salty Dornish live along the coast and retain some Rhoynar customs but have adopted the common tongue and the Faith of the Seven. The Sandy Dornish live in the deserts and the river valleys, and are closer to the Rhoynar than the Stony Dornish who live in the Red Mountains, some of whom may still practice male-preference primogeniture as opposed to absolute primogeniture. Internal divisions ensured conflict too place within Dorne even after unification, with Nymeria facing two rebellions during her 27 year reign according to TWOIAF. The Yronwoods rebelled several times in the centuries before Aegon's Conquest and supported 3 of the 5 Blackfyre rebellions; following the death of Nymeria's grandson Mors II, his successors the Red Princes (2 of 3 were female) faced further rebellions and sought to suppress the Rhoynar language, driving the Orphans to speak their mother tongue in secret only.

Other aspects of Dorne's worldbuilding will be discussed in greater detail in subsequent installments, but for now I believe this is a solid baseline for us to use. Similar to my analysis of the Velaryon Blockade, I'm going to offer my potential fix-its or improvements now as opposed to saving them all for a conclusion like I did with the Dance series. I think this is process is better based on the feedback I received for the Dance, as its better to highlight those aspects that still work and what areas can be made better as opposed to just listing off flaws ad nauseum. Although not perfect, I think that Dorne's worldbuilding is a step up from how the rest of the Seven Kingdoms are portrayed, being on par with the North and Iron Islands in terms of the information we're given about their socities and their cultural diversity. With the exception of the Vale and Riverlands to some extent, Westeros between the Neck and the Dornish Marches tends to blend together; for example, we have little indication of any differences in Westerlands culture between the coast and the Western Hills, or the mining communities and peasant farmers, despite having three major POVs from the Westerlands (Jaime, Cersei, Tyrion).

Dorne's cultural diversity is significant as there should be a greater variety of cultures and languages in Westeros just based on the great distances and different terrain, even among the First Men and Andals. That being said, there is one quibble I have concerning the four Dornish subcultures, specifically the 'Stony' and 'Sandy Dornish.' Rhoynar culture had a strong affinity with water due to their original home in the Rhoyne valley and use of water magic; TWOIAF also states that those who settled in Dorne preferred to live by the sea which had been their home during their wanderings, hence the 'Salty Dornish' culture. It doesn't really follow that the 'Sandy Dornish' should be more like the Rhoynar than the 'Stony' based on this information; if anything the reverse should be the case based on geography and settlement patterns.

Access to the sea is greater in the Red Mountains than the western desert thanks to the mouth of the Torrentine and the western coast of the Sea of Dorne, whereas Dorne's southern coast is mostly uninhabitable. The greater abundance of fertile land and fresh water in the mountains would better accommodate Rhoynar refugees than the more scarce resources of the western deserts; despite TWOIAF's references to water witches making "dry streams flow and deserts bloom," the majority of Dorne's population remains concentrated in the east and the Red Mountains, suggesting these were just legends or that water magic did not significantly improve the habitability of western Dorne.

The way the 'Sandy Dornish' and their culture are described is also contradictory; despite references to their living in the river valleys as well as the deserts, TWOIAF makes it clear that outside the valleys, "men live in different fashion" and describes the 'Sandy' way of life as centered around wells and oasis which support life in the desert. We also know that five of the six kings that Nymeria exiled to the wall were from the Red Mountains: Yorick Yronwood, Vorian Dayne, Garrison Fowler, Benedict Blackmont and Albin Manwoody, with Lucifer Dryland of Hellgate being the outlier. Largescale Rhoynar settlement in the marches should have been a priority for Nymeria in light of the opposition she faced from the lords of the Red Mountains, both to repopulate an area that had seen heavy fighting and ensure that the border of Dorne was settled with people that were personally loyal to her and had arranged marriages with the local houses.

The 'Stony Dornish' should be closer to the Rhoynar than the 'Sandy' on this basis alone, and this could have had interesting implications for the story and worldbuilding. Given the significant presence of the Andals in the western deserts, it would have been interesting to see how this remoteness affected the local development and practice of the Faith of the Seven. Ellaria Sand is a bastard of House Uller who are one of the Andal houses that settled in the desert, though we only get glimpses of her in ASOS, AFFC and ADWD; by having the 'Sandy Dornish' be more distinct, we could have seen how her houses' Andal roots affected her character if at all. Perhaps she would be closer to Tyene Sand due to her training to be a Septa, and Tyene could even instruct Oberyn and Ellaria's four daughters in the Faith? In fact this raises a broader criticism of the Dornish worldbuilding, being how the practice of the Faith in Dorne differs from the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. TWOIAF mentions that the more liberal sexual morays of the Rhoynar clashed with the teachings of the Faith, but is the Dornish Faith deemed schismatic? Were there any conflicts with the Faith hierarchy? This is a subject that would be worth exploring since the in-universe author of TWOIAF, Maester Yandel, insists that the Andals learned ironworking from the Rhoynar and that there were relations between the two peoples prior to the Andal migrations. Did Rhoynar beliefs affect the development of the Faith in Essos and vice-versa, and did this have any affect on the adopting of the Faith by the Rhoynar that settled in Dorne?

We're going to cover more issues with the worldbuilding of Dorne once we start discussing the First Dornish War itself, but for now these are the extent of my issues as concerns the foundational worldbuilding. I believe George did a solid job of constructing it despite some flaws, and that greater issues mainly arise when trying to square this portrayal of Dorne with what we're shown in the Dornish Wars.

[zombolouge]

What’re some things that inspired you to write your Luckless books?

Initially, I had set out to write something to submit to an open call for novellas that Tor Books had been doing. The very, very early concept idea was "What if the opposite of The Last Unicorn?" where I was trying to imagine what kind of problems might be caused if you had too many unicorns. The Last Unicorn is one of my favorite movies/books of all time, so it was obviously a big influence on me and the tone of the story.

Gradually, it evolved into something a bit bigger than just that story seed. I think I wanted to tell a story about someone who goes through a lifetime of bad luck and to have it feel both like it was all for a reason AND to highlight that things could always be worse. Sort of a way to process tragedy and horror through an optimistic lens that doesn't outright dismiss how much it sucks to live through it all. That's how Bailey, my poor luckless son, came to be the protagonist. He's just out there doing his best but the world has other plans, and he does sometimes let that get him down but never lets it stop him, and I think that makes him heroic.

I'm sure anyone that knows me and my own life story would understand why I'd relate to writing about someone who is constantly assailed by bad luck but keeps on truckin' XD

I wanted to write something that was fun but heartfelt, that was fantasy but pointed out the absurdity of some of the common tropes, and that broke convention from the genre in other places. I wanted to build a world where the conflicts didn't have to rely on being overly gritty or bogged down with real world foils like racism and sexism and bigotry, but still pack emotional punch. I also wanted it to be diverse and character-focused, so that the personalities involved in the story drove it forward more than anything else.

lol and of course once I started worldbuilding, I built a nice sandbox to write not just Unlucky in, but a much longer saga. I like worldbuilding a LOT so there's a ton of lore for Skael that we haven't even scratched the surface on, and I look forward to getting more of the stories out there so I can share it. :) It's slow going, but I can always be encouraged to work a little faster if people show an interest ;)

You can buy a copy of Unlucky here, if you're interested in absurdity, sincerity, disaster gays, and murderous unicorns. <3

[shsenhaji]

📚 The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles - Book Review

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6997389051 Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Science-Fiction, adult, novella, LGBTQ+ characters, relationships, and themes, detectives, mystery, investigations

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This novella’s epigraph says it all: “There are other ways to live.” The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older is a poignant treatise on ethics, community, discrimination and class conflict, the myths we tell ourselves about our past and self-sufficiency, and the importance of being respectful toward other points of view.

While its worldbuilding captivated me the most, this science fiction novella that is a detective story also has a key underlining sapphic romance, and Older kept me reading page after page with a pleased smile on my face. I am absolutely delighted that there will be more books in this series, not least because its overarching plot threads just keep thickening.

I was luckily able to gush about how much I adored this novella for Strange Horizons, where you can read the full review: http://strangehorizons.com/non-fictio...

[paperbackd]

Book review: When Among Crows by Veronica Roth

A gorgeously atmospheric urban fantasy steeped in Polish mythology, which follows three unlikely allies as they spend a tumultuous 24 hours racing to find the legendary witch Baba Jaga.

When Among Crows is a surprisingly short novella, clocking in at just 176 pages. Usually, I'd consider that too little time to introduce and establish the rules of a complex fantasy setting, delve into the backstories and motivations of three main characters and allow readers to form an emotional connection with them. I stand corrected; When Among Crows might be the most successful fantasy novella I've ever read. Roth delivered on all fronts - beautiful writing, original fantasy worldbuilding, a wonderfully complex protagonist and intriguing side-characters with equally interesting backstories. I'm tempted to say that my only critique is that I want more, but I also think it was the perfect length for the story that Roth wanted to tell. Not every story needs to be 300+ pages, and this book proves it.

I haven't read anything from Roth since the Divergent trilogy, probably because I was a little jaded by the conclusion of that series. This novella has completely changed my mind about Roth as an author - I'm definitely looking forward to reading more from her now.

Many thanks to Tor Books for providing a copy of When Among Crows. The opinions expressed in this review are my own. When Among Crows will be released on May 14th 2024.

Publisher: Tor Books Rating:  5 stars | ★★★★★ Review cross-posted to Goodreads