Cheating Death

Life and Times of a Halfling

[darksilenceinsuburbia]

Alex Mazurov & Anastasia Glebova: Faroe Islands

[8rujaa]

places I would rather be

[wearepaladin]

“IMMORTALITY IS ONLY A WORD. ALL THAT EXISTS CAN DIE. EVERY LIVING THING HAS A WEAPON AGAINST WHICH IT HAS NO DEFENSE. TIME. DISEASE. IRON. GUILT.”

— Coaxmetal, Planescape Torment (via konaahiranolaunching)

[toastyhat-deactivated20180203]

I just discovered foodtimeline.org, which is exactly what it sounds like: centuries worth of information about FOOD.  If you are writing something historical and you want a starting point for figuring out what people should be eating, this might be a good place?

[rainbowbarnacle]

CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY

[badmadwolf]

this is awesome but the original link just turned into a redirect loop for me, here it is again (x)

[steternetwork]

A fun little resource for our period creators!

[orriculum]

🌊 Types of Mermaids 🌊

please be respectful of cultural boundaries when working with mermaids from various cultures and traditions, and be mindful not to intrude.

🌊 Rusalkas - slavic in origin, disturbed spirits of the “unclean dead”, ghosts of women who died violent deaths, with a penchant for drowning young men. they live only in rivers and lakes, and are known to have green hair like aquatic plants, only appearing in the night. 

🌊 Melusina - a mermaid that walks among humans, but returns to their two-tailed form during baths and when they bathe their children. often a water spirit of a nearby lake or river. french origin. 

🌊 Siren - greek mythology. servants and companions of persephone, whom searched for her when she was abducted. they are known to sometimes have the body of a bird, and for their song, which lured sailors to their doom. cannibalism implied folklore. have the power of prophecy. 

🌊 Merrow - irish mermaid. known to have green hair and webbed fingers. particular noted love of music and their red cap, which when stolen, they will live with the thief until they find it, and then return to the water, leaving even a whole family behind. 

🌊 Ben-varrey - from the isle of man, known to bless those that are kind to them with prosperity, gifts, and even the location of treasure. 

🌊 Aicaya -  Caribbean mermaid, humans who become mermaids when they are shunned from their community and go to live in the sea. 

🌊 Amabie - japanese merpeople, with birdlike torsos and three legs and scales. they are gifted with prophecy, usually foretelling abundant harvests or epidemics 

🌊 Ningyo - “human faced fish” known to have golden scales, that brings bad weather and misfortune when caught, but when their flesh is eaten the consumer is granted youth and beauty, even agelessness. 

🌊 Finman / Finwife - magical shapeshifters that disguise themselves as sea creatures or plants to lure humans, unlike most mermaids they kidnap people from the shores to be their spouses or servants. they have a greed for jewelry and coins, particularly silver, and prefer humans over other finfolk. 

🌊 Sirena Chilota - considered the more friendly mermaids, caring for all fish life and rescuing drowned sailors to restore life to them. known for their human-like beauty and youth, according to legend they are the child of a human and a “king of seas”, tears are a powerful substance. from chilote mythology. 

🌊 Cecealia - sometimes known as “sea witches”, they are half human and half octopus. origins in native american and japanese mythology. 

🌊 Sirena / Siyokoy - the philippine version of mermaid and merman respectively. also called “magindara”, they are known to protect the waters from raiders, and protect the boy moon from sea monsters. Siyokoys can sometimes have legs however, covered with scales and webbed feet

🌊 Sea Mither - scottish/orcadian mythology, a spirit that personifies the sea during spring and summer, battles along scottish isles using storms to bring the summer about. a mother figure to all aquatic life. 

🌊 Ceasg - a fresh-water mermaid, specifically half-salmon, said to grant three wishes if captured. sometimes called maighdean na tuinne (maid of the wave) or maighdean mhara (maid of the sea). scottish. 

🌊 Selkie - though somewhat different from the typical mermaid, as they are not cold-blooded, have the body of a seal in the water and are human on land. in legends their skins are often stolen and they are kept by fishermen as spouses, or become lovers to fishermen’s wives who shed tears into the sea.  

[a-second-soul]

Celtic Languages Resource List

Soooo since I’ve been learning Welsh for a while I thought about making a list to share a few resources to learn Celtic languages! (I’ll keep updating this post!)

Welsh

General information and links: Wikipedia, Omniglot

Online courses: BBC + Big Welsh Challenge, Say Something in Welsh, Learn Welsh Now, Learn Welsh, Surface Languages

Online dictionaries: here, here and here 

Learning vocabulary: Memrise is a good start, I highly recommend this course. 

Course books and dictionaries to buy: Teach Yourself Welsh (also look for the older versions ‘cause some of them are better), Colloquial Welsh, Welsh in Three Months, Basic Welsh, Intermediate Welsh, Cwrs Mynediad (A1), Cwrs Sylfaen (A2), Welsh for Beginners, Modern Welsh Grammar, Modern Welsh Dictionary, 

Books for the Welsh learner (beginner to intermediate level): E-Ffrindiau, Bywyd Blodwen Jones, Cant Y Cant

Books in Welsh (translation): Harry Potter, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Welsh books: here’s a website

Other cool stuff: Welsh songs, Welsh mythology in Welsh, BBC Cymru, S4C (Welsh TV), Welsh radio

Irish

General information and links: Wikipedia, Omniglot

Online courses: Duolingo, Bitesize Irish Gaelic (not free), Erin’s Web, some basics on YouTube, Talk Irish (not free)

Online dictionaries: here, here and here

Learning vocabulary: Duolingo vocabulary + other

Course books and dictionaries to buy: Gaeilge Gan Stró, Basic Irish, Intermediate Irish, Teach Yourself Irish, Spoken World: Irish, Progress in Irish, Colloquial Irish, Irish for Beginners, Irish Grammar, Irish Dictionary

Books in Irish (translation): The Hobbit, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Harry Potter, Around the World in Eighty Days

Irish books: here is a website

Other cool stuff: Irish covers of English songs, Irish TV channel and radio

Scottish Gaelic

General information and links: Wikipedia, Omniglot

Online courses: Gàidhlig air YouTube, BBC, Speaking Our Language, and this list of useful links 

Online dictionaries: here, here and here

Learning vocabulary: Memrise offers lots of courses 

Course books and dictionaries to buy: Teach Yourself Scottish Gaelic, Colloquial Scottish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic in Three Months, Everyday Gaelic, Gaelic Verbs, Scottish Gaelic Dictionary

Books in Scottish Gaelic: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Scottish Gaelic Books: here is a website

Breton

General information and links: Wikipedia, Omniglot

Online courses: Loecsen (only basics!), Langoland, Kervaker

Online dictionaries: here and here (this one’s French <-> Breton)

Learning vocabulary: Memrise again

Course books and dictionaries to buy: Colloquial Breton, Breton Grammar, Breton Dictionary and Phrase Book – if you know French, there is more: Le breton pour les nuls, Assimil Breton, Parler breton comme un Breton 

Breton books: here is a website

Other cool stuff: Breton radio

Cornish

General information and links: Wikipedia, Omniglot

Online courses: Say Something in Cornish, BBC, A Handbook of the Cornish Language, First Grade Course, Second/Third Grade Course, Learn Cornish Now

Online dictionaries: here and here (this one’s Welsh <-> Cornish) 

Learning vocabulary: Memrise again

Course books and dictionaries to buy: My First Words in Cornish, The Lexicon of Revived Cornish

Other cool stuff: Cornish radio/podcasts

Manx

General Information and links: Wikipedia, Omniglot

Online courses: Learn Manx, A Practical Grammar

Online dictionaries: here

Learning vocabulary: Memrise

Course books and dictionaries to buy: Talk Now! Manx, Manx Dictionary

Other cool stuff: read in Manx, Manx radio, Manx YouTube channel

Cumbric

General information and links: Wikipedia, Omniglot

Online courses: Cumbraek

Gaulish and Modern Gaulish (revived Old Gaulish)

General information and links: Wikipedia, Omniglot

Online courses: The Modern Gaulish Language

Learning vocabulary: Memrise 

Galatian

General information and links: Wikipedia 

Other cool stuff: Galatian words in Turkish

Lepontic

General information and links: Wikipedia, Omniglot

Online courses: basic information

Other cool stuff: a collection of Lepontic inscriptions, more information

Celtiberian

General information and links: Wikipedia, Omniglot

Online courses: some basics

If you’re learning one of the more “popular” Celtic languages, you can also use lang-8 to practice your writing skills! 

[tw-evan-deactivated20170827]

Want to use a fancy custom language for something, but don’t know how to make one?Use Vulgar!

Vulgar is a conlang (constructed/fictional language) generator created to help literally generate a language for you. No, really. No tricks, and it’s super simple to use. It’s my favourite tool right now for writing fantasy, even as someone who loves creating his own languages, it’s an amazing starting point.

Want a random conlang, straight away, with no prep or fuss? Just visit http://vulgarlang.com/index.html and click “Generate New Conlang”… and that’s it. Scroll down and through your brand new, generated, completely original conlang. 

If you’re a little more advanced in terms of conlanging and want to specify IP phonemes to be used, you can add them too, but even with no knowledge of linguistics you can create a language at the click of your fingers.

This version of Vulgar is completely free, sure…. but! the guy who created it has not only made an amazing thing (which I repeat, is absolutely free at it’s most basic point), but is also planning on updating it more and more!

Under the “Buy” tab on the Vulgar website, he links to his email, where you can offer to pay for the full version of Vulgar, which is a total steal right now at a sale price of only nineteen dollars. Considering professional conlangers and linguists could charge you, like, a metric fuck ton of money for the same data you’re getting here for just nineteen, that’s a major steal.

Not to mention, buying the alpha build now gives you free access to all of it’s updated versions, which I can guarantee are just going to get better and better! I’ve already bought it and I adore it, and this is a tool the likes of which we in the conlang community have never seen in such an awesome way.

Please consider helping Vulgar out, because the creator is a damn genius

[thewritinghole]

This is fucking amazing

[theinkstainsblog]

Holy shit, I just had a go at this and it is brilliant. For all my high fantasy writers, this is a huge help!

[wearemercs]

Bounty hunter by jdmart

[scifi-fantasy-horror]

by  Efe Vardar

[dragonmaidenofchaos]

WIP Game

WIP Game -  Send me a word and I’ll post a sentence or two with the word!!! I have a few WIP’s so this could be fun!

[outofcontextdnd]

“relationship status: mutual pirates”

[archae-heart-deactivated2021012]

Autumn in Scotland

[darantha]

A corrupted druid for this week’s Patreon sketch poll prompt. :)

[meanwhilebackinthedungeon]

– Luisa Preissler

[amareverie]

Dark Times by andreasrocha

[emerysmerkin]

Genoese Medicine Chest, 1562-1566, made for Vincenzo Giustiniani

[breathtakingdestinations]

Königssee - Bavaria - Germany (by Sergiu Bacioiu)