Reshape and Remake yourself

[storiesmadefromclay]

Welcome to Stories Made from Clay

I invite you to come along on a ride to watch a story, hopefully a book one day, be made. Like clay it will be shaped and reshaped, material added and substracted, this blog will journal this journey.

The articles will be expanded when new ideas emerge and placeholders exchanged for proper names and terms.

Check out the following pages:

Characters

Cultures

Economy

Geography

Languages

Religions

[storiesmadefromclay]

Big Mountains

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Istam

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Age: 19

Sex: F

Ethnicity: Big Mountains

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Volcano Mountains

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Academic Mountain Folk

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After a student has finally managed to gain admission to the University of X they are welcomed with a huge feast where alcohol and other drug consumption is highly encouraged. Afterwards the students are sent to their cells and locked in. Before daybreak they are fetched from the rooms and led through the catacombs of the campus. They connect to a natural cave opening. At this opening they must strip their clothes off and leave it behind. The cave narrows down to a small crawl space which opens up into a bigger space again. Here's a natural pool of water.

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Ulvastar

Range: The city of Ulvastar and its closely surrounding lands in a distance of 5 leagues from the city border, as well as the town of Ranistar

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Eastern Nomads

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The Swamps

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The Isles

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Riverlands

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[storiesmadefromclay]

Gant

Full name:

Age: 21

Sex: F

Ethnicity: Ulvastar-River culture

Family: She lives together with her mothers and 5 siblings (8, 11, 13, 15, 18)

Background: She grew up with two lesbian mothers in Ulvastar. They are River culture, though one grandfather is Kunge/Eastern Nomad. Since this was the father of her birth mother, she is a bit darker than the average River woman. Her mothers chose the usual method of conceving kids, bidding for wrestling stars' sperm. They took turns with pregnancies.

Her mothers work as teachers in the Siedle. Her birth mother as a basic education one, and her other mom as a higher education one. In her teens she started supporting her mothers and tutored children who had trouble catching up with the curriculum, such as Simbiti and Istam. She cares greatly for the two and wants to see them succeed. She isn't as worried about Istam as she is about Simbiti though.

After she finished the normal schooling at 17, she was, naturally, recommended for university, which she enthusiastically joined. Gant has been consistently showing herself as a dedicated student, which in turn drew the attention of Academic Mountain Folk professors. In a rare ocassion they appealed to their Academic Council to have Gant admitted to University, despite her being an outsider. Now they are waiting for a response.

Character: She is generally thoughtful and prefers to discuss everything and sleep a night over decisions.

Appearance: She is full-figured with a bob haircut being peppered with greying hair, as is often usual for River people at a young age already. By her skin tone it is obvious that she has some Kunge in her, meaning she is pretty dark skinned, but not quite as much as a full Kunge would be.

Goals and motivation: Owing the circumstances of her parents, she received an excellent education and dreams of becoming a lawyer and working her way to the city council.

[storiesmadefromclay]

Simbiti

Full name:

Age: 17

Sex: F

Ethnicity: Nomad

Family: She lives with her mother, father and one older brother (22)

Background: She grew up in a small herding community until she was 8 years old when her mother had a riding acident. Her mother became paraplegic and couldn't continue caring for the herd. She trained to become a shoe maker instead.

To better sustain her business and have better accommodations the family moved to the big nomad city. This disruption in lifestyle greatly upset Simbiti, who felt she was cheated out of leaning to ride and herd as well as the rest of her family. It is something she is sensitive about to this day.

A few years later, when she was 11, the decision was made to move to Ulvastar, to have better opportunities and the most knowledgable healers to attend to her mother. For the first time in years Simbiti unexpectedly didn't feel as if she was sticking out like a sore thumb, meeting other nomad kids whose parents had given up on herding.

In school she met Istam, who also was more behind on the curriculum like her, and being tutored together they met Gant.

Character: She often makes impulsive decisions which get her in trouble, though she usually means well.

Appearance: Her statue is small and slim, and she's usually estimated to be a good couple of years younger than her peers, which doesn't help with her desire to be taken seriously. She is the lightest skinned of the trio, though if she would spend more time in sun, wind and weather she could considerably tan.

Goals and motivation: She wishes to learn how to ride and herd like her ancestors did.

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Nomads

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The actively herding members of the clans will move around with the animals and will employ yurts during the grazing season.

There will however be small gatherings of so called earthhuts, most often in the range of 1-10 dwellings in a gathering, which will form the heart of a family's landclaim and. They are similar to the yurts in a round fashion, though oftentimes a bit larger. They are dug into the ground with poles stabilising the sides. Only the roof is elevated above the ground. Except for the chimney or the middle of the roof offset from the rest to allow smoke out, it is fashioned from solid wood covered with slate shingles. In turn earth is heaped onto these and grasses and other small plants allowed to grow on them. This way the huts barely stand out against the landscape and offer ideal insulation year round.

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Leather and furs play a big role, on the one hand for their durability during shepherding and horseback riding, on the other hand because of the rougher and colder weather with snowy winters and the relentless wind sweeping the plains.

Men and women both wear a fur trimmed leather cap, which will be embroidered with their clans' and families' symbols as well as motives meaningful to the individual, either due to his or her calling, work or history. X modification also shows the relationship status.

While both men and women usually keep their hair long, it's usually only women who will braid their hair in many single braids, each containing a strip of colourful cloth in one of the clan or family colours for the summer months. Men are expected to X.

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Kunge

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Their cultural centers lie along the steep cliffs of the coast of Kunge, named after their culture, stretching up to the ??? mountain range in the north and the Eastern Swamps in the west.

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According to Kunge scholars they had their origin on a landmass across the southern ocean. The story goes that over a thousand years ago Queen Kunge was betrayed by her husband who was mad for power. She barely survived an attempt on her life, her handmaidens smuggled her out of the palace while she was severely wounded. She was taken in by a family of simple farmers who cared for her, while she recuperates. In the meantime her handmaidens had swarmed out to garner support for Kunge, which was not very hard, since her husband was raiding settlements in his search for her, specifically ordering the men to strike fear into the common folks' hearts.

When Kunge had become well enough to take matters into her own hands again, she found her country torn asunder. Her handmaidens had found or organised many local resistance groups which were facing the army, which had become most obedient to her husband, promising them riches and land. She knew that any battle would leave her subjects decimated and devastated, even though they insisted it was their duty and honour to fight for their queen. Torn she sought the wisdom of several sages. From them she learned the stories of a land across the ocean.

Her heart was heavy to leave her beloved lands and she felt guilt for what she was about to put her subjects through, but she knew it had to be done, because the alternative would be worse. She travelled to the northern coast and ordered ships to be built. Her resistance fighters gathered resources and food for the travels into the unknown. Of course her husband soon heard news about the fleet and sent troops to scout it out. The resistance was strong enough to overwhelm the smaller scouting units completely. Worried about the complete disappearance of his men the husband decided to draft more men and train them before attacking, giving valuable time to the ship builders. As his men finally approached the wharfs they only saw a string of sails spanning the horizon.

Carried by the currents, the fleet still took a full moon to cross the ocean. When they finally reached the coast, the food and water were dwindling and sicknesses started to spread. To their desperation their ships were facing sheer cliffs, with no chance to land. But the queen urged them on to sail with the current. After five more days they finally found a place where the cliff had collapsed into the ocean and they could moor their ships. Everyone rejoiced, because their queen had led them to green plains, where they could raise cattle and tend to their fields. They took apart most of the ships and built their houses from them. The place where they landed is today the capital city of ???.

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The most widely known tradition is the cliff climbing, where three times per year during the super tides the strongest and most athletic women of a town will climb down to collect seabirds' eggs, or molluscs. They are secured by teams of their friends holding their roping, and the winner is the one who can fill her basket the fastest. It is mostly a sporting event, but all women who participate are highly respected. The training in the teams often forms strong friendships that will last a lifetime. The tradition overall brings together the whole town and the day ends with a feast of the harvested foods. Every three years the winners of the last three years of each town are sent to the capital to compete. It is a major event which even draws visitors from afar.

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Religions

[storiesmadefromclay]

Languages

Ulvastar, by virtue of being a melting pot of three major cultures, with many more making their influences known from time to time, too, will be assumed to have language from the Swamps, the Riverlands and the Isles used in its walls in roughly equally the same measure or all of them together as a lingua franca hodgepodge. It will therefore only have its category for the city specific terms and slang, and for a word to be put in overarching usage it needs to be used in two regions besides Ulvastar.

Overarching usage

hati - (Ulvastar, Swamps, Riverlands) honorific for a girl or woman older than oneself, oftentimes also used as endearment between older women friends

Riverlands

lo - prefix used to turn nouns into diminuitive form, also in combination with verbs and adjectives to modify intensity of the meaning. Example: lohati

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Geography

Coast of Kunge

Swamp

Great River

Volcano Islands

Volcano Mountains

Big Mountain Range

Eastern Desert

Southern Hill

Northern Hills

Grasslands

Hot Mud Plain Volcano

Great Plain

Lake Landscape