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Distinguishing sand masters, the Diem, and the sand profession


Jofwu

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I'm working on the White Sand pages on Coppermind and I'm feeling some confusion on how to handle these terms. Here's my take on them:

  • sand masters - I take this term to mean anyone who can utilize sand mastery (like Surgebinders, Mistings, Awakeners, etc.). It's not an "official" term; it's just a catch-all for people who can use this kind of magic, whether they have an official association or not.
  • Diem - This refers to both the building AND the sand masters who reside there. Those who are part of it tend to refer to themselves as part of the Diem. This is an "official" organization made up of sand masters.
  • sand profession - This seems to be synonymous with Diem, but seems to be used in a more political or economic context. It mainly seems to come up in contexts where the other professions are involved as well, and it seems to be used more often by outsiders in place of Diem. (Side note: I'm also curious if anyone knows whether "sand profession" ought to be capitalized?)

I'm curious if you guys have any input on my interpretations of these. I'm particularly interested if those who have read the prose version can weigh in. I know discussion of the prose version isn't appropriate here, but that's not quite what I'm asking for. I just want clarification on how these terms are intended to be read (something that doesn't come across very clearly in the graphic novel).

The problem I find is that we have articles for both "Sand master" and "Diem". The first contains information about Diem heirarchy and such, which doesn't feel right to me as the term doesn't imply association with the Diem and it's rules, ranks, customs, etc. The latter focuses on the building only, which doesn't feel right as it is frequently used in the graphic novel to refer to the official organization of sand masters. And between each of these, I'm not sure how "sand profession" fits in- should it be included as an alternate term for Diem, get it's own article, or be stuck in some other article?

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Does the graphic novel actually use the term Sand Profession? I've read the prose version more often and they just refer to the profession of sand masters as the Diem. My initial reaction is to make the page "Sand master" cover the manifestation of Investiture itself, the ribbons of sand, overmastery, slatrification, and so on, and have the Diem page describe both the physical building and the organization itself, as well as the stuff that relates it to the other profession (the content that you've referred to as the sand profession). Because there aren't really any sand masters outside of the Diem, there's not much need to make any distinction between the Profession and the organization, as they are essentially one and the same.

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40 minutes ago, Windrunner said:

Does the graphic novel actually use the term Sand Profession?

It does, notably when the Taishin meets to discuss the future of the Diem. Kenton is announced as a "representative of the Sand Profession", Drile spoke "on behalf of the Sand Profession", etc. The Lady Judge in particular refers to "the profession" of sand masters at the meeting and when alone with Kenton- almost using it interchangeably with Diem. I couldn't quite tell if there was supposed to be a subtle distinction between the two that was worth noting.

40 minutes ago, Windrunner said:

there's not much need to make any distinction between the Profession and the organization, as they are essentially one and the same.

This is what I figured would be the case. So I'll plan to just make a note explaining that the Diem is one of the 8 professions of Lossand.

40 minutes ago, Windrunner said:

make the page "Sand master" cover the manifestation of Investiture itself, the ribbons of sand, overmastery, slatrification, and so on

In this case I think that "sand master" should redirect to "Sand mastery"- right now these are two separate articles. Assuming there's not really any notable group of sand masters outside of the Diem, I don't see that the "Sand master" article would have any substance to it. Should basically work the same way that "surgebinder" redirects to "Surgebinding", "misting" or "allomancer" to "Allomancy", etc.

Edited by jofwu
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35 minutes ago, Windrunner said:

Agreed, I can do that redirect on Sand master if you want me to do so. Is there any content from the Sand master page worth keeping currently, in your opinion?

In that case, the Sand masters page has a section on organization that should be moved to Diem. Also, I just realized that the page titled Sand master already redirects to Sand mastery. The page with information on it is Sand masters.

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Hmm, I'm not sure about the template thing. I'd default to organization primarily as well. That's more of an @Joe ST question. The redirects are made, although I added a disambiguation page so people who are searching the term sand master(s) can decide whether they are looking for Diem or Sand mastery.

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I'd prefer only one infobox on each page. two solutions would be to manually add the 'building' categories to the page or have a stub/redirect/etc kinda page for the building infobox. I think I'd prefer the former but I'm easy tbh.

It might be worth adding a link to category: sand masters in both the Diem and sand mastery pages (as a {{for}} header to one of the subsections?) as we've done on other group pages, to show membership of that group

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Isn't Sand Master anybody capable of Sand Mastery, sand profession people who actually chose it as their 'class', so to speak, and Diem organization of those people?

It's like with Hemalurgy:

Anybody can do it, but we only call Hemalurgists those who actually use it and Steel Inquisition is specific organization of Hemalurgists?

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Yes, I agree, but the distinctions aren't strong enough at this point for separate articles.

For example, there's no notable group of sand masters besides the Diem. So a page for "sand master" would have nothing to say besides "people who do sand mastery". Same thing for "the Sand Profession" as the term completely overlaps with Diem in practical usage in the text.

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