A blog for world building, behind the scenes, writing snippets, and fan creations for my story Brolly Mage. | This blog is modded by wyomingsmustache. | Theo, he/him/his | If there are any accessibility issues with the blog let me know and I'll see what I can do about sorting it out |
About elf names: The names elves give humans when they visit the magic realm are not their own, or even their familiar name. Elves act on a ‘true name’ system whereby their real real name is kept secret from everyone, their familiar name is the name that people call them, and then a human name, which is a short name translated or abbreviated into the local language from some element of their familiar name, since elves don’t like to hear elf names spoken by human tongues. The names are rarely straightforward, and the long forms can occasionally be very long. It should also be noted that they sound much better in the original elvish.
Some of the translations of familiar names in full are:
Oak’s full name is ‘The Great Oak That Spreads Its Branches Wide and Delves Its Roots Deep’
Ash’s full name is ‘The Flame That Burns Gives Life’
Holly’s full name is ‘Little Prince of the Waning of the Year’
Rose’s full name is ‘Where Beauty is Found Certain Danger Lurks Nearby’
Dune’s full name is ‘The Sand that Rises in the Wind’
Maple’s full name is ‘The Blood of Life that Rests in Winter and Rises in the Spring’
Toby’s full name is ‘Life Under a Roof of Trees’ (Unlike the others, Toby merely abbreviated his name, rather than translate it)
Honorable mention: Toby’s human ward Song’s name is short for ‘The Dawn Chorus’, Toby preferring to give his kids elvish names because he haaaaaates human names.
About elf names: The names elves give humans when they visit the magic realm are not their own, or even their familiar name. Elves act on a ‘true name’ system whereby their real real name is kept secret from everyone, their familiar name is the name that people call them, and then a human name, which is a short name translated or abbreviated into the local language from some element of their familiar name, since elves don’t like to hear elf names spoken by human tongues. The names are rarely straightforward, and the long forms can occasionally be very long. It should also be noted that they sound much better in the original elvish.
Some of the translations of familiar names in full are:
Oak's full name is ‘The Great Oak That Spreads Its Branches Wide and Delves Its Roots Deep’
Ash’s full name is ‘The Flame That Burns Gives Life’
Holly’s full name is ‘Little Prince of the Waning of the Year’
Rose’s full name is ‘Where Beauty is Found Certain Danger Lurks Nearby’
Dune’s full name is ‘The Sand that Rises in the Wind’
Maple’s full name is ‘The Blood of Life that Rests in Winter and Rises in the Spring’
Toby’s full name is ‘Life Under a Roof of Trees’ (Unlike the others, Toby merely abbreviated his name, rather than translate it)
So. I don’t feel like doing up proper cast bios right now, but here’s a full spread of the working cast as of right now. There will likely be more characters added as I go along, but for now, this is all of the characters who will be acting within the primary, secondary, or tertiary spheres of the Brolly Mage story.
The Main Three:
Rye: (center) The titular character, who uses a wand shaped like an umbrella and specializes in defense magic. Rye wants to be a member of magical enforcement for the Council, and the tying force of the first arc is Rye studying for the entry test to train as an enforcer. Rye is also, though he doesn’t know it yet, the only other person in the world able to use Spirit Magic, a branch of magic used by elves and thought to be exclusive to the Overmage.
Tana: (left) A mundane who lives in the house because there were limited options and she didn’t want to carry on living at home anymore. Tana is cheerful and optimistic, which is seemingly at odds with being so accident prone- Tana’s sentences are often punctuated by the word ‘whoops’.
Ellory: (right) Rye’s best friend, the two decided to get a place together and ended up at the house when they started college. Ellory is a scholar at heart, preferring to study magic academically rather than any hugely practical magic. Her specialty is small spells, and unlike the other two she can keep many going at once. However, large spells tend to fall apart quickly.
Everyone else, starting at the top banner, under the cut:
Kirikikiri (Kiri for short): The Harp that lives on the roof of the gang’s house, on their widow’s walk. She’s their unofficial roommate, and doesn’t have to pay rent like the rest of them, because it’s considered good luck to have a Harp living on your land. (More accurately, it’s bad luck to tell a Harp not to live on your land, and since anything that’s not bad luck is good luck then clearly it’s good luck to let them stay there. This is an old superstition with origins in violence, like most superstitions that survive.)
Holly: An elf who was exiled from the fair realm and stripped of his magic, so now he’s trying to make it in the magic realm but having no magic, he’s discovered that he’s actually quite useless. However, he’s very intelligent and knows quite a bit about magic all the same, and the rest of the gang like him, for the most part, even if he can be irritating sometimes.
Mada: Sam’s Sprite familiar. Mada has been bound to several mages before Sam and is a seasoned veteran of guiding mages, most of them healers like Sam. Mada is a lot meaner than the other two sprites, with a much firmer hand, but she has a heart of gold and doesn’t like to see anyone hurt.
Sam: The oldest mage in the house, with several years experience on Rye and Ellory. Sam practices mainly healing magic and fills the “witch” role within the trio primarily, though this is not a rigid casting.
Jidi: Rye’s sprite familiar. Rye is Jidi’s first mage, and so both of them are learning together. Being the youngest of the other sprites by quite a lot, Jidi is still full of magic and tends to be more prone to mischief than Mada and Horo, though it as to be said that Horo is more malicious in his mischief than Jidi.
Horo: Ellory’s familiar, who is only a familiar as penance for some crime. He’s taken to it quite well, though, and is exceedingly loyal to Ellory, though it seems he has it out for everyone else, especially Holly. He and Jidi are often found in the midst of some prank or other, with each pulling the other in a constant tug-o-war of morals.
Sunna: An anthro who hangs around with Lofty in Amity. She also can often be found prowling around the city on her own, where she is undisputed ruler of the feral cats in the town, and keeps animal control in check to boot. Since anthros are uncommon in populated areas the mages are tasked with keeping an eye on her by the council, though they have the deep hope they never have to do anything to command her because they have a distinct impression that it wouldn’t go well for them.
Lofty: A local bum who is often more concerned with enjoying a lovely day than doing anything that might be considered productive, and happens onto the mages quite often. Since everyone tends to like him, this isn’t considered a bad thing, though it’s disconcerting how much he knows about magic given he isn’t actually a mage.
Stas, Reggie, Sebastian, Emmanuel, Jo, Terry-Marie, and Dru: Friends of Rye, Tana, and Ellory from school. I’ll talk about their individual personalities in a later post.
King Oak and Queen Ash: The king and queen of the fair realm, and the fair realm’s link to the spirits of wild and earth- Oak being the unruly and unpredictable nature of the wild and Ash being the nurturing and vengeful nature of the earth.
Toby: An old elf, from the Days Before, referred to by Holly as one of the “eldest”. Toby is vengeful and hates humans and fair ones alike, preferring only the forest, and the main conflict of the story is his attempt to rip the world apart and destroy all sentient life so that the forest can grow unchecked.
Song: A timid young human stolen away and raised in the forest by Toby. Eagle-eyed viewers will recognize him as my redesigned Doyle from RvB; I decided to stick with my original design and didn’t want this one to go to waste.
Dune, Rose, and Maple: Rose is the son of Oak and Ash, and Dune and Maple are his companions. The three come to the magic realm to cause mischief and get mixed up in Toby’s plot. (And Maple gets mixed up with a human girl, but that’s a post for later.)
Here’s a full size of the icon I used for the blog, if anyone wanted to see. It’s Rye in his mage hat, and we’re going to ignore the poor job I did on his hand there
