Noul is/was a paracosm of mine that I worked on throughout most of my teenager life. It featured a couple hundred years of history, maps, a language, and was intended to be narrated throughout a series of books - most of which I didn’t even start.

I might end up uploading whatever I still have here. I’d rather not abandon it, but in all fairness I haven’t worked on it in a while, and I do not know whether I ever will.

Update: I finally started working on Faun (the conlang) again!

Update 1.10.24: finally started writing this down

Noul is a paracosm of mine that I worked on throughout most of my teenager life. It featured a couple hundred years of history, maps, a language (linked here), and was intended to be narrated throughout a series of books - most of which I didn’t even start.

Some months ago, I brought it up with an anthropologist friend of mine, and it inspired us both to start or continue work on our conworlds. Today, on another prolonged train ride, I ventured to write things down.

Geography

First, a brief description of the (insofar unnamed) main continent. It is in the southern hemisphere (meaning, further south means colder, unlike eurocentric maps), spanning roughly XXX. The northernmost part is an arid desert/wasteland, narrowly missing both the [equatorial rainfall ring thingie] and just in the rain shadow of the mountains to the south. Below that is a fertile mountainous region, its larger river basin draining to the west. The mountains, resulting from a subduction of the northern, arid plate, are [tall]. Most of the precipitation comes from [the south]. Further south are extensive plains, with various rivers culminating in a large central lake, itself draining in the ocean to the west. To its south-west is a minor mountain range, further south-east is a horn. [boy this sounds like shit, go over it, use some more technical terms, maybe vary it a bit? ‘the continent is bisected by an appalachian-type mountain range, bordered by an arid wasteland to the north and lush, wide plains to the south’?]

endorheic lake in the northern crevice more detailed map w/ regions - dont think i can describe that in words too well

First Age

There are five main races living on Noul - half-human, half-animal hybrids roaming the plains [holy fuck this sounds racist].

Wolves

To the far south, in the cold [coniferous] forests, roamed the wolf tribes, nomadic, result-oriented survivalists. Spiritually, their world is separated in two layers - what is, and what happens. This is mirrored in their language, with only a present and a progressive tense, and verbs being the roots of words. Their weapons are spears - usually as a long, ornamented spear with a [chipped] edge for stabbing, and a quiver of heavy, sharpened sticks for throwing. As they have no horses, some have adapted wolves to fill the same role, pulling loads on travois, and later sleighs, chariots, and wagons. As nomads, they live in tents, built from fur and primitive fabrics.

Of note are their funerary rites. Being very pragmatic and result-oriented survivalists [pretty sure I used that phrasing already], they waste little, and this also applies to the [corpses] of their relatives. Hair, leather, bones, tendons and [gutstring], in times of need even meat, were procured from the deceased. While most were processed into tools, the skulls were usually kept as an effigy of the person, left on a place of significance to the deceased while on their travels. Finger bones were often made into memorial necklaces for relatives, and hair braided into decorative string. From those, along with knotted [felted?] reinforcements to the pelts of their tents, developed the first weaving, which later became [a trademark] pivotal to their culture.

Keeping dogs, they easily amassed wool [fleece?], leading to great weavers among them, and colorful tapestries were made to commemorate events.

[auditorily/aurally], they could be recognised by their bone flutes, finely crafted and capable of both soothing melodies at the evening fireside, and of shrill alarms across long distances.

Creation myth

In the beginning, there was pure existence, a complete whole, encompassing all. Yet, in its [singleness], nothing could happen. Its [wholeness] was stasis.

At some point, it cracked and broke into uncountable parts, each taking its own path, doing different things - and in doing, they changed, and became different, became all the things of the world, spreading, multiplying, dividing and changing more.

[note: while philosophical, their creation myth is a bit of a cop-out. “well you need a thing to make other things, right, and you split small things from big things and then form them into specific things. so if you think back, there’s gotta have been a huge first thing, and then that split into parts, and then those parts became different things.” - “okay, but where did that thing come from?” - “you stop asking questions or ill get the big stick.”]

Foxes

An offshoot people, living along the north-eastern coast of the great lake, derived from more foxy hunters, recognisable by their different pelting and smaller build, suited to a warmer climate. Their tribes bridged the gap between the loner wolves to the far south and the other peoples along the mountain range, and as such, they were more social, more interested in trading. XXX smth bogs archery

Bovines

Since we have wolves, let’s do a herbivore. Something calm and peaceful, non-threatening. Maybe a hippo. - ave

On the opposing side of the [great sea], in the fertile plains and deltas to the west, lived bovine peoples. Much more sedetary, they lived largely off the land - yet they were not obligate carnivores, as parts of their diet could not be satisfied by plant matter alone [rephrase]. Thus, they developed fishing, adopting the spears and woven nets of the south to hunt underwater in the warm and plentiful waters of the nearby ocean. More sedetary, they even started developing basic huts, [etc etc idgaf what they did for living quarters] [main inspiration here are the maori, which doesnt quite fit since they famously didnt live on a continent]

Creation myth

Water begets life. Life needs water to live, and sometimes other life. From the endless ocean that is the world, life arose, so much life that its dead bones [and skin] started heaping so high they broke the surface. Water sprouted from that heap, exiting the life it had once nurtured, and more life grew from it, forming fields and forests. Life learned to live on land, yet still it depended on water, always returning to it and needing it to grow and live.

[oh also, the sun is a ball of fire, and it comes out of the ocean every morning (and the oceans burn and turn to steam, which is what clouds are), and it goes into the earth every evening (and the ground melts, which is why the earth is warm to the east)]

[note: their life revolves around fishing, so it makes sense for them to argue that water begets life. also fitting for the civilisation that invented booze. living next to (and with) the ocean, they have an idea about just how big it is, so they logically assume it cant possibly have come from anything else, because theres nothing big enough to have contained it.]

Harpies

An interesting tribe, living in the mountainous midlands, are the harpies. Half-man, half-bird, those plumaged folk don’t often intermingle with others, as their eggs need extensive brooding which makes them unsuited for other ways of life. However, those that fail at the social aspect [of reproduction] sometimes decide to leave their tribe and join one of the wandering groups to the southeast, helping them in scouting and being regarded as lively, colorful additions to their troup. Where wolves fill the pack animal niche left by the lack of horses, those harpies fulfilled the need for scouts and messengers. Their [garishness] and fancy feathers were an inspiration in the bold, colorful designs of tapestries.

Living in the mountains and being highly mobile outside of their breeding seasons, they were of the few peoples that already had a food surplus, and were aware of most other peoples. However, as this did not imply much work, they didn’t found civilisations, instead focusing much more on social presentation and flamboyance.

They sound like the camp gays predestined to invent sequins. - Mike

The harpies are [largely sedetary], living in the mountains and only occasionally traveling much outside of foraging. They are slightly shorter than the [faun] average, yet much louder. Their language, with clicks and tonal vowels, sounded like rapid chatter at the best of times, and was quick to adapt lingo from other parts of the world - though, it was rarely adapted back. [smth smth social hierarchy]

Their gigantic migratory cousins interact even less with others, often only seen as hulking shapes on the horizon, heralded by guttural migratory calls, and widely regarded as a symbol of wisdom due to their knowledge of faraway lands and old age. Their bones and feathers are quite prized, used to make huge instruments, [armguards], and exquisite tent decorations.

Creation myth

A great bird of a thousand feathers in a million colors laid an egg that shone brighter than all the world’s oceans and all its gems. For [x] moons it brooded, on the [x]th it hatched with a great shudder that shook the heavens, and spilled its [egg white] which became the oceans, and its shell became the rocks, and a great chick arose and pecked holes in the firmanent in anger, trying to break free, and it cried a cry so loud it shook the air and made the winds, and it sang a song so beautiful it cried and cried and grew weaker and tore itself apart so it could sing just another note. Its bones became the world’s ores and gems, and its feathers all the trees and plants, and its blood drenched the ground and made it grow more food, and its guts became all the world’s creatures [specifics], so they could sing forever its song. Only its eyes it kept, to keep watch over its creation, and forever it watches over us, with one eye giving us light, and the other rest [/peace/protection], yet with no ears to hear the beautiful songs of its children [that end is very sad and will probably get “corrected” sooner rather than later].

[note: their creation myth is the only one that features their own race a priori. the more impressive a harpy is, the more things they can do - so it must have taken a really impressive harpy to do all the things (ie create them). the social hierarchy is implied to be more powerful than the concept of existence.]

Reptiles

Even more excluded for their reproduction were reptiles, [etc etc lived in the north next to the desert, developed stone tools that were prized and traded throughout the continent, mainly settled around the lake in the north basin bc warm. ate what? fish, cattle? probably not cattle, that implies a lot of other civilisation stuff. probably already had basic housebuilding, since thatd be kind of required. food dictates a lot abt their life, so i should figure that out before getting too deep into culture/spirituality/creation myths.]

Even more [exotic] were the reptiles to the north. Living on the coast of an endorheic lake, surrounded on three sides by tall volcanic mountains and a [vast] desert on the fourth, they did not get many opportunities to reach out and mingle with others. However, the volcanic sediment made for fertile soil, and they were one of the first peoples to found a [sessile] civilisation, quickly inventing huts and fishing rafts.

Further south-east, on the [volcanic] [hills], an offshoot species lived, living off [foraging], dwelling in caves and adapting to the [geothermal sources]. They were less flexible in their [] and thus progressed less, yet due to their closeness to [x], they developed much more sophisticated alchemy.

Being reptiles, they were not well-adapted to the changing temperatures of the day. This torpor, combined with the discovery of fire and shelter, lead to the development of a shamanic spirituality with a focus on the “dreaming world”. The highly hallucinogenic bacterial cultures that fed on the volcanic ash certainly helped.

Creation myth

Fire gave live, therefore fire was life. The rocks of the lake, heated up by the desert sun, and the boulders of the mountain, likewise warmed by the magma below, awoke and began to move. Feeding on the lichen around them, they [remembered] the [memories] of the heat inside them, beginning to dream, and thus becoming people.

When cut, they bled, and when their flesh parted, underneath was hard bone. The sun warmed them, filling their heads with thoughts, and the ground fed them with [lichen], making them dream. Likewise, the earth bled in rivers and [lava flows], and when its sands [and dirt] parted [or smth - also applicable to the mountains jutting out], underneath was hard rock, almost as if it too was alive, the heat above them, a life force coming from a world of reason, the heat beneath them, from a world of dreams.

Arachnids

[very fucking secretive because of how different their biology is, social hierarchy was a biological imperative (ant-like worker class, warriors, singular queen), lived in extensive cave networks around the fiery mesa to the east, probably an inspiration for weaving, ‘ancient evil lurking in the dark and tempting with knowledge’ even tho they were generally quite sociable if you werent an asshole and figured out how to interact w/ them]

[also technically you had cephalopods but those lived underwater and didnt interact w/ the others until well into the modern age]

Second Age

On the south-western side of the great lake is a minor mountain range, on its eastern side a rock. One day, a red-eyed man cloaked in shadow sat on that rock, watching a corn stalk grow. From its seeds, he planted another, and watched it grow as well.

Thus began the second era of the faun. The wolf peoples got inspired by the man, picking up corn and flax, seeding it, and reaping the results in a year. An informal peace treaty was established, that no fight or pillaging [conflict] was to take place on the mountain, and the frail, old, and disabled were the first to settle down permanently, watching after the plants as the shadowed man did. With more, and more permanent, food sources came food surplus, allowing more to settle. Other tribes caught wind, and migrants came to help and partake in the rewards. The first settlers hardened their tents with clay from the lake, thus building the first permanent habitats. And from ‘to build’ - pas - became ‘Paslo’, the first city.

[elaborate that this was a gradual process]

The nomads, however, refused to settle completely. Yet, centralisation and civilisation did not elude them, and they started building settlements on the other ends of their paths as well, having a place to rest and refuel on both ends of their journeys [tambos?]. Later on, those would develop into ossuary settlements, where the bones of the ancestors would be brought to their eternal rest. The wolves and the foxes built tents on stilts in the [midland] bogs, a place to pray and trade when they met up on their respective travels. For the first time, the [sedetary] harpies had a place close and convenient enough to migrate to, and there started intermingling and integrating into the emerging faun society.

[harpies started settling bc OMG CORN and figured out how to brood there, but that also led to a racial (istg) split, with the ones in pasloe developing closer to pigeons compared to the more parrot-like ones to the north] [also, like, would that be pasloe, or the ossuaries?]

[also the ossuary settlements only really kicked off after the scism] [well, they were pretty well-established and important before that as well, just, not “de-centralised”]

The four [five?] major tribes, when gathering, started distinguishing themselves by origin, but increasingly more by specialisation - builders [artisans], weaver scribes [traders], husbanders [warriors], and farmers [lovers], with the first settlers becoming a priest class, watching the shadowed one and recording his teachings of agriculture, ceramics, and stonework. From the clay they built pots, in the image of the bowls he used to cook their corn, and then inventing fermentation (and thereby attracting even more settlers (to get absolutely shit-faced with)), in the masonry they recorded the teachings, slowly building up a citadel around the man they had gathered around [nope] - from kor, to gather [round], became ‘korpus’, the first temple.

[ill prolly have to rewrite that last paragraph…]

(sidenote - the rock he was sitting on when not teaching, the center stone of their civilisation (literally), was thus ‘kormech’)

[XXX what was the guy’s schedule - religious fests would be planned around that]

[XXX what would the routes of the other tribes look/develop like?]

Besides corn, they grew flax, and with its fiber, plentiful and easy to work, their fiber craft florished [and thus gave the finger to the arachnids, who never became a part of paslo bc of how prohibitive it wouldve been to migrate and settle there]. Larger, extensive, elaborate, more solid tents and fanciful clothing were the least of their creations. They used threads to keep ledgers, strands denoting times, knots on them different amounts (quite similar to the inca). Woven tapestry replicas of the cathedral were made, folded up to transport to the four other sites for teaching and debate, then miniaturised for personal use for those willing to afford them [nope - ossuaries came later, and the “cathedral” ie prayer room was entirely in black]. The pictograms became a logography, the knotted threads grammar, and thus was made the first writing system. In addition were made maps, lists of towns to be traveled to reach destinations, knotted together like beads on a string, along with measurements of the sun and stars in order to know where the temple is.

[move the section re: written language to the religion stuff]

[on a sidenote, the part abt flax somewhat overshadows the equally important domestication of moufflon/samoyeds (still not sure which way i wanna do this). this leads to the invention of basic bagpipes, which get combined with clarinets to produce more scots-like instruments in the war period]

gift-giving society

the man on the rock introduction of agriculture and stonework food surplus as foundation for civilisation foundations of metalwork? nomads settling down, first city in parallel, four more as travel destinations later develop into ossuary settlements castes flax and linen clay citadel and tapestries of the priests knotted accounting origins of writing carpet list maps, directional system

the northernmost tribe (pazzio) started building boats to cross the lake, then expanded to sail all the way from pasloe to pazzio an errant boat crossed the tropics and settled the northern islands, founding a polynesian-like culture obsessed with going back to their ancestral lands - the first (and only) ones to develop spirituality

Third Age

For three hundred years, the Faun florished, growing corn, building huts and houses on the mountainside, welcoming more and more people to their rites, domesticating mouflon and weaving great tapestries [detailing] the rites of watching their god. Alas, there was an end to their glory, for one fateful day, during the Rite of the Bowl, as he walked down to the lake to gather clay, leading a procession of all the highest priests and their servants and the common folk gathered to watch and pray - he did not stop, walking straight into the lake and disappearing from sight.

All things considered, the resulting panic was rather well managed - the priests were trained to watch calmly and pay attention no matter what, and when they initially failed to panic [/react], the populace remained calm as well. Yet, the hours grew late and dark, and a question was asked louder and louder, decision had to be made - “god is gone - what now?”

In the days after came a great discussion. As tensions grew, the oldest treaty [“no fighting on the mountain!”] threatened to break down. [XXX important/relevant ppl here?] Eventually, a compromise was made: a scism. [timberwolves vs lakers]

Scism

institutionalised religion, how that worked - maybe elaborate on rituals etc? - black cloth - bridge gets a cool stick, and (mike insists) a sash - three shifts a day - mainly in relation to outsiders - accepting new acolytes, giving each newcomer a tent, bedroll, spear, rope, and food, and letting them figure out where they wanted to go from there - maybe a pet? caste system, ranks - general class of undecideds who had to learn how to do everything - main “test” to get a rank [technical term] to a specific class, eschewing other responsibilities for a specialised task - weaver scribe test is to join a tribe and travel with them for a year, keeping a record of every day. upon return, get quizzed on its contents. this led to pasloe amassing vast records from all over (very useful), and all tribes acquiring scribes for recordkeeping. this kickstarted the ossuaries. their specialised task was to work on the holy scroll (recording all discussions regarding god) and keep track of records (ie librarians) - observer tribe test was memorising records, in addition to being an altar boy. the bridge selects who is to assist them, and of those, who is worthy to join their ranks. once the acolytes gain this rank, they join the main observers of god, watching their every movement in daily eight-hour shifts, followed by a debate. amongst those, each year, a new one is elected to act as the “bridge”, watching not god but the watchers, keeping track of time, maintaining peace and order during meditation observation, putting the watchers under and waking them for shift change, and sending altar boys to do outside errands as needed. - husbander test and task - farmer test and task - builder test and task

“prayer” room, how that looked/worked - black wool yearly “pilgrimage” to the lake for clay “and then he got up and fucked off” “what were not gonna do is panic” and then everyone panicked two camps, “collective soothing” the “lakers” deciding to spread out and travel the world, trying to figure out where the dude fucked off to while the “orthodox church” stayed behind, dogmatized, and then mysticized the castes

timekeeping (sundials and pendulums), tapestries (weaving as a language only develops here, maybe see abt moving that section), how were the watchers trained

oh right at some point the white men came and did a genocide, is that separate? iirc that happens after the “lakers” have spread out and established a presence. after those, they evolve into witch hunters speaking of - i should probably at least look at the witcher books at some point turns out, its in polish :/

XXX how does alcohol interact w/ the priestly class hippos figured that out, and the timberwolves were not happy about that at all

continent named ‘where the shadow roams’? good thing we have kaila as a metaphor for that guy (and also wisdom/knowledge i guess?!?)

what happens w/ the dogs once they start settling down? floofy samoyeds for wool/fleece, and later on shepherd dogs which in turn implies moufflon domestication also, more sophisticated toolwork (stone/metal?) for shearing

view on families “man hunt” was less because “man strong” and more because “man disposable” (easier to rear a child when the father goes missing than when it’s the mother) - does that (or rather, how does it not) lead to a view that women are fragile and need to be protected? - we ignore the “taking care of babies” aspect since thats a communal affair the harpies wont have that aspect, since once theyve laid eggs (significantly easier and faster than child-rearing), their job is done or we could have them actually be sexist, until the third era where the priesthood gets too much power and goes to war with the northerners and most men die out nope. the tribes have a very mild version of sexism, the settlers have none of that (as they do not need to reproduce to grow their numbers), which in turn makes the nomads more sexist, which turns into a sparta situation

which tribe is which? - wolves become warriors - bovines become lovers (aka farmers) - harpies become traders (aka messengers, scouts, etc) - reptiles become craftsmen (first knappers) - spider/insectoid class got ignored for paslo, still remaining in caves in the north XXX rehash this: the organisation in early pasloe was not (purely) based on race

not sure how much i like the idea of having “reptiloids” also, minor changes to reproduction - feathers and scales derive from hair and are related enough we have genes for them irl, but reproduction via eggs is significantly different from live births

also, spiders have an ant-like social structure, w/ a queen and workers and warriors and all that how did their language/writing system evolve in relation to faun?

different species and their distribution on the continent aforementioned sexism, and how that interacts w/ the priestly class, which has none of it how the monastery priestly class works - prayer by observation - training in it, see notes from mike XXX i should really write those down - welcoming to outsiders, interacting w/ them - hierarchy, who watches the watchmen - bridge - timekeeping: first sundials (necessitating recordkeeping for ephemera), also foucault pendulums - tapestries developed from note-/recordkeeping of observations, evolved to also maintain celestial [ephemera] and “political” events

and then they met the peoples of the north, aka the egypt stand-in / european colonisers [which are actually two completely different points, but whatever]

an important note here is that magic very much exists in this world. occasionaly, people are born who have the power to do the impossible - however, on noul, this never really took off. yes, there was a person who could turn their anger into a fiery inferno, however that person was a bovine fisherman who spent their entire life with the peace of mind a tibetian monk could only dream of.

the northerners, however, took a different route [actually, sidenote: theyre not as much “from the north” - they are from a wholly separate continent, and just happened to first make contact / settle down in the north]. magic became religion, and its inheritance became foundational to their social hierarchy. unlike the peoples of noul, who managed to coexist (more or less) peacefully, their continent was plagued by wars, empires, and eugenics, resulting in a homogenous race of people with latent magic powers, governed by those that awakened theirs, with a carefully trained (and in-bred) elite on top, with a carefully controlled narrative of control. superpowers were the catalyst of their civilisation, and they went from proto-babylon to turbofascism in the span of a couple centuries - barely enough for the others to develop a priestly class. [this is shin’s blue empress on a civilisation scale.] once they encountered what to their eyes were monsters, they had to impose “peace and order”. and in turn, faced with a horde of highly organised, highly idealised invaders that could literally summon fire at a whim, the one thing the peoples of noul were sorely lacking was military.

copy stuff i sent to mike for descriptions also, while all thats happening, their god is playing crab mahjong with octopodes - oh yeah theres sentient cephalopods, did i mention that and then he went to ask the fascists if it wouldnt be grand to be nice to each other and then they wiped themselves from existence habsburg-style also, the development and application of military was mainly done and coordinated by the “lakers”, which lead to the existence of a “witch hunter” caste

note: “maize” is a word that exists

“bend in the chamomille” first fantasy literature originated during the war, but started spreading afterwards the author had been a scribe responsible for gathering and maintaining records of troops the story is about a traveling prostitute starts w/ a group of traveling “monks” staying by in pasloe, feasting, conversing w/ the ppl one beds a servant, who decides to leave w/ them afterwards - which turns out to be what actually happened, except irl (heh) she stayed behind, became a scribe, ended up transcribing what happened to them, and then wrote a ficitonal book about “what if i had left that day” - also, had a daughter from it the story would be presented as an annotated translation, ie not the faun original, but a later translation (also interesting since the language wouldve changed a lot), plus annotations by historians abt how different parts are interpreted since it’s fiction, itll probably include a lot of superstition/fantasy abt other ppls - compare gilgamesh epos' treatment of deities - which means ill have to figure out what their superstitions and beliefs of/towards others even are… - also the reptiles are gonna be fun

contraceptive plants: silphium (that story is fascinating) lily root and rue (thats the yellow shrubby thing i used to play in and occasionally eat as a kid) fennel (the nice-smelling shrub used in absinthe) (not really contraceptive, but ya know) “nabruqqu” australia aboriginal: giant boat-lip orchid, quinine, blue-leaved mallee, cooktown ironwood - ingested, inserted, or smoked canada aboriginal: bloodroot (which is pretty badass tbh), red juniper - pennyroyal, tansy, canadian wild ginger, calamus (also psychoactive!) - tansy, quinine, pennyroyal, rue, black hellebore, ergot of rye, sabin, cotton root - the latter also used by american slaves thistle (donkey thorn) (unfortunately i cant add this, given the “no horsies” rule) apparently, chamomille can indeed cause uterine contractions and abortion! which is not exactly contraceptive but abortative, but still counting beads?

tale of days collection of “day in the life of” stories, except from various different peoples and decades if not centuries apart we get a close glimpse at what life is like at various different places during various different periods

• wolf nomad in the southern plains, preparing for winter
• knapper at the lake, preparing wares to sell
• levoim, childhood friend has awakened and is showered in gold, laments their “happily ever after” because she has to leave for the capital
• nomad, happy abt flint spear, comments disdain for the first settlers
• harpy drama, one leaves for the south
• fisher to the west, trying beer for the first time
• cephalopod decides to migrate to a reef further north
• young girl has ran away from her tribe with her pet, doesnt trust the settlers
• levoim family is being hunted after firstborn misbehaves near an imperial soldier
• worker drone gets tasked to acquire some of that mysterious “corn” for their queen
• girl from before, now an old woman, one of the high priests
• necropolis burns, depressed straggler gathers scraps
• prostitute at the lake discusses political drama, considers going further north
• harpy organises transport for reptile refugees, endulges in gossip
• fisherman organises/trains a fight squad of various refugees (one of them cloaked in shadows)

the harpies probably have a thing about painting eggs

lizards go into torpor -> cosmology about cyclical fight between death (night) and rebirth (sunshine) some went into a cave that was heated geothermally and their torpor was less deep, giving them an edge in hunting which developed into housebuilding they grow a type of fungus on rocks (not main food source ig, tho what would be?) that, when fermented anaerobically, becomes psychoactive (also sulphuric and methanic fumes from the caves) whole cultural thing abt that -> shamanism

slim/thick build dichotomy: - wolf people have the foxier variants in the north - not entirely sure this applies - birds have the huge migratory variant - hippos will probably intermingle - lizards might have a vulcanic cave-dwelling variety - figure out metalworking?

chat w/ mike 18032025 - lizards will have shamanic traditions ie real and dream world, encounter w/ fire-wielding white ppl will prolly develop into revering them as coming from the dream world - after schism, lakers will travel north and encounter harpies, sociable enough to integrate, will become popular bc opposable thumbs, wolf culture will spread - istg i need names - also, yes, thisll be the reason faun (the language) and their religion will later become the dominant one - lakers will have knowledge of valley, will prolly start traveling around - will start shaving (dogs have fur and dont sweat - well adapted to southern climate, but will be hell in the middle continental planes) and instead wrapping themselves w/ fabric, which evolved into the witch hunter look - how will that develop into the witch hunter caste, how will the war happen - harpies wont be able to grow corn, but will start foraging/exporting in order to get it - southern plains will start growing more corn for trading - thisll prolly kickstart travelling infrastructure - eventually, hippos will get their hands on it and absolutely explode (economically speaking) - pasloe will buff up weaving and yarn production (n order to be viable trading partners), leading to domestication/evolution of moufflon into sheep (also samoyeds), and improved spindles - orthodoxy would have dogmatised by this point, howll this affect society - wth are the lizards doing at this point? they prolly wont have much contact except maybe w/ the harpies (and the odd laker strangler who passes their way), figure timeline of the na'u and noul separately and then connect them whenever the war starts - i did hc them as being the first metalworkers bc magic, not sure how viable that is tho i did off-hand mention them having “vulcanic” “cousins”, could be those figure smth out - could stea- i mean, adapt mikes idea of “red-cloaked desert dwellers” and lead “red sand+vulcanic rock” to its logical conclusion - also intermingles well w/ the laker priests already being wrapped in bandages - o shit, could i pull a buddhist monk thing where different priests color their fabrics in different colors depending on where they travel and/or what they do? raises the question of what the black ones signify tho - hippos will make a monoculture and eventually collapse due to a plague, no idea when or how but it will have effects - one of em prolly being a catalyst for their culture being “overtaken” by another species, leading to the “medieval” mercantilist society (renaissance italy) having a minority of hippos mainly working as farmers and [transportleute]

meanwhile god is still chilling around, but more learning stuff than teaching it the faunus envision him as an ageless man cloaked in shadow, when the body is more of a marionette being pupeteered by the shadow (which is their actual form) while they were watching him on the rock, he was observing them and learning how to mimic them was a stealthy passive observer for a couple iterations, started learning manufacture from idk, lizards? - prolly not the lakers, as those would in fact go buck wild if they found out hes still around started making the artefacts of power (catcher blade, avadonian dial, etc), some of them maybe w/ pieces of himself?

for writing this all down: mike suggested a wiki, which might be useful actually a timeline would also do us wonders. we have the rough outline of one atm (the “ages”), might wanna canonisize some of that also i mean, different civs will develop at different rates, so the “concurrency” is very enforced and at best very fake, so years might be a better option, but then id have to actually provide numbers, and that never goes well

oshuni - “ppl of the water” ie lakers the orthodox could then be “ppl of the stone”, ie okormi? - or, as mike suggested, timberwolves

more general notes from 8.4.25: - bogs/bayous around fox territory, yucatan-style underwater caves - spiders? - mages successfully settle northeastern coast - little conflict bc social darwinism in the ecological sense - most neighbors occupy different nisches (how tf is that spelled) and thus dont compete - except wolves and foxes, tho for them it makes more sense to trade - also, low population sizes - on that note, pasloe is first “civilisation” on the continent, with pazzio second (thus being strongly influenced by it) and skei third (with their own habsburg-style magic shit going on) - thus, those are the ones that start warring, which later spreads to skei when they start growing and taking shit over - not sure how this interacts w/ the “warrior class” idea… - naval battles between pasloe/pazzio? paz gon start army shit - oh also intraspecies war re harpies, but thats gonna be a whole other mess to figure out - harpies have a huge influence on linguistics - “weaponise” the faun religion, which is the main reason it survives (and thrives) in paz - steam engine invented w/in a generation of settling newland

pazzio gon be the one to grow corn on an industrial (well) scale, hence also the ones to develop currency (metalwork permitting) - would clay make sense for prototyping? “coins” are circular, with knobs on the outer side and a hole in the middle - hole derived from the faun faith (though distantly), knobs symbolise corns - coins symbolise corn knob slices, and are stacked and counted as such larger denomination started off as a decorated corn knob (thus symbolising a stack of coins), late simplified to just the tip (used to tip off counted stacks) smaller denomination started off as pearler beads symbolising individual corns, developed to be more akin to sequins (easier to manufacture and handle (and decorate w/), harder to skim, also pazians initially used fish to trade and these are “callbacks” to fish scales) theres gonna be a stereotypical image of a hippo with corn knobs hung around their neck, innit also probably influential in tapestry symbolics innit also implies theres a “standard” amount of corns on a knob, and ppl will get very haggly about it which also has implications about the counting system - how many corns on a slice, and how many slices in a knob? - also, counting words for the currency therell be a story of a merchant who offered X many knobs for a favor, got a shoddy favor, and paid in knobs as in the plant instead of the currency as implied

discussion w/ mike 11.4: - raptors are pastoral, idk if obligate carnivores, but agriculture doesnt do it for them - have almost trivial metalwork (ores in sediments and panning, vulcanic heat), upstream from pazzio - send metal/coins downstream, get what in return? - down w/ current, up w/ either sails or rowing (hippos be buff yo) - might wanna subdivide map into much smaller regions, use those for precise descriptions of what happens where - should work well recursively, gon need a very fancy map for that tho (or software ala chunker) - should later transition to watsonian names - might wanna have a go at drawing (or rather, describing) diegetic (aka watsonian) maps, as a tool for explaining/understanding how the peoples comprehend their world and thus themselves - i should really print out a buncha maps and draw overlays, huh - temporal division in “global periods” makes sense, tho we might wanna be a bit more differentiated abt it. also doesnt entirely circumvent the issue of colinearity - how did migration affect: fiber/textile, music instruments (also metalworking), family concept - jaw harps where? - string instruments develop from bows and require very strong strings (tho hair/tendons/gutstring could suffice), tho where would we even have bowyers? - harpy names for regions/places/formations will be trendgiving, should at least figure out a naming stage of the language

mike 25.4: - pasloe-rok korma: dont build on ground around rock, nor roof above it. zone of silence around it (localised vow), prolly end up building a lot around. one shift sleeps, one watches, one maintains zone / discusses. - orthodoxy (timberwolves): after guy leaves, strengthen the rules, dogmatise, become very strict. possibly they are the progenitors of the warrior caste? dressed all in black, vow of silence, very strict and good at what they do, religious rites being observed in inconvenient/inhospitable conditions? - lakers: become a lot more lax w/ religion (partially as interpretation of “scatter and see where the guy went”, ie rules no longer apply), once they start settling around pazzio, religion is quickly thrown aside for mercantilism (pov wolves, they are apostates, having “strayed from the path” and abandoned theiw vows) - raptors pastoral, “weird” (quoth mike, alien), very advanced in material/alchemical sciences, have metalwork. lakers avoid them bc different foundations (mike, blue-orange morality), but start trading metal for cattle. potentially some travel to pazzio and advance clay/mortar enough to enable larger constructions. in turn, maybe some hippos (need an nba name for em) settle the north-eastern coast and fish there to trade w/ lizards? then those catch the northerly winds and settle the northern archipelago? - will have had contact w/ harpies, so some intercultural awareness there, also both lay eggs? - speaking of clay, thats when/where the first “written” form of faun develops - spiders gon be fun, since they work a lot more as a species, ie the entire colony is more of an individual entity. also caste-based society, which has ramifications. how does their writing work? - dna? less actual information, more a list of rules and references? - have to figure out them foxy fucks in the middle plains