#ppilli

[thestarrymanuk]

we are learning. ecology

[thestarrymanuk]

What is civic government like in the Red City? Is there a unified consolidation of power or rival factions vying for supremacy, and how does Meyeqitš slot into it all?

oh, the red city (iridarra) has possibly the worst form of government: it is ruled by the university's faculty senate. it is so, so stupid. half sumer, half medieval paris. getting anything done depends entirely on the whims of one or more of the dozens of faculty committees and subcommittees. imagine the venetian senate but with snide academic bickering. it is ridiculous. a city the size and population of the bay area, surviving solely on literal millennia of institutional inertia.

such a system naturally presents many opportunities for the manipulative and ambitious. some faculty (magic) are centuries old, and are formidable political forces whether through their resulting experience, connections, or sheer cussedness. ofc there's also a hierarchy to the senate, from ignored undergraduate interns, adjuncts, lecturers, junior faculty, faculty, senior faculty, etc., all the way up to the illustrious archchancellor; the full franchise is probably limited to faculty and above, though the untenured probably get to vote on some (less important) questions now and then. the archchancellor is probably the closest single thing to an iridarran head of state.

the current incumbent, of course, is a recurring presence in meyeqitš' no good awful very bad time at uni. he's the first human archchancellor in many years, so out of necessity he plays the political game very sharply. he immediately identifies meyeqitš' potential (as both a powerful magic user and one he wants to have in his pocket) and so greases many wheels for them, but he makes no pretenses about expecting their fealty in return, which immediately and deeply disingratiates him. but he's not the only faculty meyeqitš gets involved with—the other, namely, being their sponsor, the mysterious eyreth. how did a completely unmagical lede become tenured senior chair of esoterics? what are they playing at, poaching meyeqitš—a completely untrained, unlaureated postdoc, a white elephant preschooler with the power of a god—from the archchancellor himself? and how on earth are they going to teach meyeqitš alchemy?? (why, via their lost-and-found red uni princelings protege club, duh.)

but eyreth too has their deep political secrets. :3c they're not who (or what) they seem to be, though the truth of their intentions is probably more of a shock than the discovery they were hiding something in the first place. i think meyeqitš will still be glad to have sided with them in the end, but let's see if i can write something that far first.

…unless you meant ppilli! which is a (medieval-style) commune.

the city of ppilli has probably had many forms of government over the untold millennia of its existence but it is currently steered by a nebulous "council" consisting of the chief senior priest, the captain of the city guard, and a representative elected from among the heads of all the city guilds. when one exists, a šiušappandzaš (what meyeqitš is) is a sort of unofficial fourth councilor, but with somewhat more than one vote—they couldn't force a decision through without support, but they can always veto singlehandedly. though i suppose they do have some more direct political responsibilities… there's at least one "festival" annually where the šiušappandzaš is expected to hold court and arbitrate civil disputes, though they might not be able (and definitely don't want) to do it their first year or so at the university—iridarra is halfway around the planet.

but the politics in ppilli are generally much more low-key than in the red city. there's stuff going on but it's like. 10k people, max? meyeqitš in particular finds themself in a strange position of suddenly going from an awkward, temperamental loner, a known Weirdo (with a notably Difficult, if respected, non-local mother), to a living god with mass popular veneration/support. of the three councilors, the most antipathic is probably leluaniš (?), the guard captain, but mostly because she's under a tremendous amount of stress which is only exacerbated when commandeered to babysit a tremendously annoying and depressed baby god. definitely not because of the time when she hit on them when they were both horrible teens, though mainly because she doesn't really remember.

even a baby god is a powerful patron, however. imagine the knives and intrigue of big-city politics transposed onto small-town drama, where everyone knows everyone and all their history together, too. many fish with designs of bigness in this very small well! the priests' college likes to claim meyeqitš early on but while meyeqitš does take their (ugh) responsibilities as a god (UGH) VERY SERIOUSLY, they only tolerate ninna and alawaši (the official and unofficial chief priest, respectively) to certain limits. they respect their (undeniable) experience as administrators, small-town politicians, and diplomats; they respect the history and gravitas of the institution; they have limited opinions of the more mystical/esoteric aspects of religio ppillensis (meyeqitš believes in religion more or less like they believe in the weather before religion starts believing in them) but are willing to admit they are perhaps not an expert.

but they find ninna oppressive. especially his expectation that (after being graciously allowed out of the city to learn magic) meyeqitš will more or less retire from the world to be a decorative temple ornament. he's not like the archchancellor—ninna's attempts at manipulation are so obvious and easily avoided meyeqitš initially thinks they're demonstrations as for children, softballs, meant to show them what they should really watch out for—but. hm. very much "the dad that earnestly, heartbrokenly can't understand why his child isn't going to medical school, despite never actually asking if the child wanted to be a doctor." alawaši is much more pragmatic about meyeqitš being their own person: man proposes, god disposes. but her vocation was always the practical administrative aspects of the job. and meyeqitš is close to sitayqik from very early on; sitayqik is a priest, but they were heavily and even unsecretly reformist even before "their" god (meyeqitš) entrusted themself to their care. they're in love with god, not the college.

of course there are also a lot of little local grandees who try to suck up to meyeqitš following their ascension. most of the time meyeqitš understands (they mutter, with gritted teeth) that this is simply a function of having a new and very important job, one they take very seriously, and they also understand (they insist, with clenched fist) that most of the people leaving them sumptuous and ostentatious offerings are just concerned with introducing themselves, making a good impression, the continuing welfare and safety of ppilli, etc. the one exception they knowingly make to this self-enforced good faith is whatever would-be rural baron sent a little baby manuk, alone, nearly 3000 miles across the world to a stranger he wished to impress. and especially once they learn who this sender's family is.

[thestarrymanuk]

okay but what is their sign, then? and what are birth signs like in this setting, given the constellations would sync with Earth's? and who actually gets mimosas at dim sum brunch vs. being tea-only purists

so. the problem with figuring out fantasy pseudoscience. is. that it's kind of underpinned by fantasy actual science, right. after spending entirely too long playing around with astronomical software, it seems meyeqitš would be… (tiny fanfare) a sagittarius? probably? tentatively. at least if they'd been born on earth.

excitingly, however, we're not on earth! the night sky is indeed essentially the same, but ppillisi astrology consists heavily of specific horoscopy, i.e. it seeks to predict the outcome, implications, or general vibes of a given event based on the relative positions of various heavenly bodies. these include not only the wandering stars (the sun, moons, and five additional planets visible to the naked eye), but also certain "fixed" constellations, including those of the ecliptic (the bull, the spindle, the guardsmen, etc.) but also others along the road of heaven, some of which can be as or more influential than those of the ecliptic.

horoscopes are reasonably common in ppilli (courtesy of a small but respectable guild of astrologers) and largely…well, "not regarded as pseudoscience," i guess? they're admonitory—astra inclinant, non obligant—but while the heavens never lie, mortal interpretation is easy to fool. at least 20% of the reason astrology exists is to fuel the ppillisi market in "vintage 90s gold and navy sun-and-moon print shit," but the job of "astrologer" also frequently overlaps with positions like "life coach," "medieval physician's assistant" (though they don't actually perform bloodletting, they'd just write the referral), pretty much anything that can be prefixed with the word "wellness," and of course, the endlessly meaningless "consultant." most are very well educated (you have to be, to write birth charts without computers) so once you "graduate" to a full astrologer you'll usually have a particular field of specialization.

but most of what they do with that specialization is horoscopes. horoscopes are mainly taken for specific events as opposed to "something generic you read over breakfast in the morning paper." they're very important for personal events—births, marriages, building a new house—but also for certain public undertakings, too: construction of public works, diplomatic exchanges (including declarations of war). if you're really concerned about it you could probably do them for something smaller like starting an apprenticeship, changing a career, serious illness, (long) journeys, etc. but shorter-term events and conditions are usually inquired about via other divinatory means. ornithomancy and haruspicy are ofc The Classics but i feel like ppilli is so old and weird its various irrational superstitiones should also be old, weird, and perhaps vaguely offputting.

the one thing you definitely can't (legally) do is necromancy, in the original sense of the word: calling up and consulting the shades of the dead. this is one of the only very strong cultural taboos in ppilli, but it's very strong, and almost always associated with serious antisocial activity. of course, you could also (attempt to) just straight up Ask Your Local God. but it's probably apparent from the very beginning that the current god-in-residence is given neither to prescience nor the patience to transcribe all that math out by hand.

anyway: on earth, meyeqitš might be a sagittarius. but their sun sign (let alone a sign they've never heard of) probably isn't the most significant part of how they'd understand their "chart." like their predecessor, meyeqitš was (and understands themself as) born under qetšarnanz—the new star, the scorcher. specifically they were born on the night of its acronychal rising, the first night of the year the star rises just after sunset. this is a relatively regular and predictable event, which, as in many earth cultures, is regarded in ppilli as an important calendar landmark. of course ppillli is extremely fucking old so a lot of the original relevance is lost to time. but in general, qetšarnanz is associated with three things:

an ancient megalithic ruin complex of uncertain function, on the extreme eastern edge of the city, far predating even the oldest of ppilli's recorded history;

announcing the annual flood of the city's no-longer-extant river; and

the hottest, longest days of summer.

[thestarrymanuk]

@niemalsetwas both! my ppilli moodboard currently consists of roughly 50/50 real world places (keet seel, montezuma castle, petra, and ofc reconstructions of çatalhöyük):

and screenshots of the sauro and nimue levels of the pathless, a game about which i am fundamentally unwell:

[thestarrymanuk]

Hello on WBW! tell us a bit about the taxonomy/ecology you're working on. What species are you developing, and are you going into a whole ass food web or just a rough evolutionary tree?

ah hello! i've been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately by the thought of/attempting to do An Entire Planet, so currently i've been playing around with ppilli as a sort of…representative thumbnail? meyeqitš is from there; bellroc was profoundly shaped by the place of their birth, even long after their city had died, and i enjoy imagining hapless baby god failing around their end-of-nowhere town, even occasionally accompanied by nature. but which kind(s)? how? in what contexts? ppilli lies at the end of a massive and ancient river canyon; the river itself is long since extinct, but the canyon is by no means "dead." i'm currently trying to justify a mix of biomes, mostly consisting of the grand canyon (for "realism") with a healthy dose of "how much can i make a near-equatorial canyon at the edge of a vast and trackless desert resemble 8000 BP central anatolian steppe" plus a whimsical dash of "early cretaceous yellow cat formation (where convenient), for Reasons." i'd like not to segue entirely into rebranding as a biologist, but i would like to figure out just how unrealistic my NYC sewer arapaima/giant rideable draft varanids/utahraptors actually are.

the problem is all the cool fantasy fauna i want are huge, which means they require a shit ton of food. worse, they're all carnivores! i already used my one (1) "get out of realism free" card to handwave a magical well system, so at least the arapaima have somewhere to live. but what are they eating?! and what about those? (if you've been playing along at home, you know such rabbitholes are typical of my creative process, haha.)

so i guess i'm trying to build just enough food web to justify my pet enormous carnivorous megafauna… except… i'm doing that by trying to figure out the entire food web needed to support them, lol. so probably the exact "wrong" way (or at least it feels "backwards"), but at least i've got dinosaurs :3c