A GLOSSARY of Kasslynian Terms
THE KHERT: The arbiter of reality and natural law. This unseen network blankets all of instantiated reality, enforcing order and the physical world. It also executes appropriately composed pymaric commands. Beyond instantiated reality, it can be directly accessed as a traversible realm which eternally holds the memories of every human that has ever - or will ever - exist.
MNEMONIC PHANTOMS: Ghosts. These are the isolated memories that slough off the human mind upon death. These memories scatter along emotional lines, congealing with other like memories to form a range of ghosts, fair and foul. Though the khert keeps them trapped, some do occasionally escape into instantiated reality to haunt particulate matter, like smoke and sea spray.
PYMARY: Kasslynian spellcasting. Any human has the potential to become a spellwright. A spellwright can use the art of pymary to command the khert to make physical changes to reality. This art consists of commands structured with specific syntax and then verbally delivered. Certain Adeliers are known to be "tacit casters," meaning the khert can hear and execute their silent commands.
- PYMARIC SPELL: The building block of pymary. A spell consists of a declaration to the khert, the collection of Aspects from identifiable Materials along khert-lines, the manipulation of those Aspects, and an executing trigger. All spells must be - at their base level - communicated to the Khert in the language of Old Tainish.
- PYMARIC: Pymaric spellwork or isolated Aspects installed permanently into a First Material container, creating an artifact that can be used by anyone, repeatedly. Pymarics can be anything from a simple grenade to a ridable construct that combines spellwork and sophisticated mechanical engineering.
- ASPECT: The manipulatable physical property of any Material. Aspects include Temperature, State, Momentum, Colour, Volume, Opacity, Durability, Flammability, and on and on. Using pymary, these Aspects can be isolated and condensed, swapped from Material to Material, or removed from instantiation entirely.
- PLOD: A construct consisting of a corpse in a pymaric mask. These "recycled labourers" are a common convenience throughout much of the world.
SHARTESHANE: A far eastern kingdom ruled by a token monarch, but known to be more firmly in the grasp of a handful of sophisticated criminal families. An agent of chaos.
CRESCE: A far western Gefendur theocracy and ethnostate ruled by the Sonorie Dynasty. With a command economy and efficient welfare system, it tightly but successfully regulates its industries and labour. Supremacy has allowed the Gefendur religion here to evolve into a freer, more culturally and socially liberal force. Cresce and Alderode have hated each other since time immemorial.
ALDERODE: A socially conservative northern republic ruled by VITS Council, a body until recently equally composed of Gefendur and Ssaelit officials. These two faiths have co-existed for centuries thanks to The Great Compromise. Laissez-faire Capitalism and threadbare social services have encouraged the formation of ghers, or communes, though a vast underclass exists outside of these spaces. Foreign incursion is highly discouraged.
THE DAMMAKHERT: Alderode's altered khert. This strangely warped network controls Aldish citizenry in disturbing ways, from their physical appearance to their agency. It's spread through the erection of khert hubs.
CASTES: All humans conceived within the Dammakhert are assigned to one of six castes. Most of these castes can read each others' emotions, sense one another's presence, and receive commands from the Dammakhert.
- Copper: Red-haired and ruddy-skinned, they can live for 400 years. They have no spellcasting ability but later in life, grow to an enormous stature.
- Jet: Black-haired and pale-skinned, they can only cast via direct touch. They can live up to 250 years.
- Silver: Silver-haired and olive-skinned, they have mildly heightened spellcasting ability and are dead by 50.
- Plats: White-haired, white-skinned, fragile, with only three decades of life. They have acute spellcasting ability, and a special bond with the Dammakhert.
- Bronze: Brown-haired and brown-skinned, their natural lifespan is difficult to determine, fluctuating along familial lines. Likewise, their spellcasting ability is erratic. They're considered a "muddled middle" within Alderode, and make up the majority of the population.
- Gold: Also known as the Soud, the Yellow-Haired, or derogatorily, pissmops. These are the blonde, pale descendents of the ancient Tains, an ethnic group from the far east. They have a standard human lifespan and spellcrafting ability. Because the Dammakhert does not alter them nor speak to them, they are despised as untrusted outsiders.
- Yerta: Sunny sky blue with hair of rain-heavy clouds, Yerta is the primary Gefendur god. Kindly, maternal, she is depicted as eternally pregnant with the world. Also known as the Oldest or Elder Sister, for she is twinned with...
- Tirna: The Youngest/Younger Sister. A capricious trickster god famous for trying to jealously end the pregnancy in her sister's belly. She was banished to the world for her crime, where in some traditions she grew closer to Man, and in others more resentful. She is depicted as half black night and half red blood.
- Riv: The father god, Elder Brother, and keeper of the sea. He is the star-cloaked night warrior, protector of his family in the darkest hours. Riv also judges the souls of Man, and with his Chaos Beasts, either welcomes them into the Outside, or flings them back into the world to another incarnation. He is twinned with...
- Baelar: The archer, the spellwright, the gentle poet, who wove his siblings' brilliance into the lines of the khert.
The CAST
Duane Adelier: An undead Aldishman. Father, Husband, Soud, Ssaelit cleric, greatest wright in centuries, exiled from his homeland.
Sette Frummagem: Pre-pubescent daughter of her hometown's crime-lord. Sharteshanian. Ambitious pocket-picker with an unnatural tail, a bestial sense of smell, and a precocious tongue. Highly mysterious, but doesn't have time for any of that.
Matty Quigley: A small Aldish boy of the Plat caste. He lost his sight years ago when state enforcers attacked and killed his dissident mother.
Jivi Flask: A Crescian boy who was captured by slavers far from home. Wears a mysterious bosun's pipe around his neck, and speaks with an occasional nautical flair, but otherwise keeps his origins to himself.
Queen Sonorie: Cresce's elderly ruler, who has determined to put an end to her country's violent past with Alderode.
Chief Engineer Nora Pris: An eccentric Crescian engineer allied with the Queen in her aims, and one with a personal distrust and dislike of Aldishmen.
Tree: An Aldish badman affiliated with the Tannery. Unofficial caretaker of Sevencrow Court, a dilapidated neighbourhood of efhghersit, or disenfranchised poor. Known to have dealings with...
The Lions of Mercy: Ssaelit paladins garrisoned at the Temple of Song, in Durlyne.
The Golden Delight: Their mascot.
