ZincAboutIt

"Ah," Lita said. She decided not to confess her own con-job parallel, forcing down another round of blushing. You're not just a scam-artist anymore. She twirled the end of her hair around her finger, then stopped, looking down at the plait. She held it up by the middle. "Would braiding something work? Hair, string, ribbon?"

Lita chewed her lip and thought. "It was like walking on a narrow plank," she said quietly, "laid out over a high drop. One foot in front of the other. Eyes only ever on the plank. Never at the ground below." She absently undid her braid and brushed her fingers through her hair, then started plaiting it up again. The tension on each section of hair felt good, everything being corded and woven into its place. "I thought about this place," she said, still braiding. "I did as you said. I remembered it down to the way this alley sounds. It was there, in my mind. Then when I started walking, it felt like any step in the wrong direction and..." She trailed off, fastening the end of her braid with a little leather tie. "Well, I imagine 'falling off' would result in something worse than a broken arm."

Lita turned, hastily wiping her eyes and getting up. She felt heat creep up her neck, and hiccuped as she tried to calm herself down. The concern in his voice was unexpected, and somehow made her feel even more foolish. "I..." Lita began, then stopped. What had happened? She looked down at her hands - she still had all her fingers. The rest of her looked unhurt as well, apart from the heels of her palms, which were red and raw where they'd broken her fall. "I don't know. It was..."Her hands moved around one another as she tried to find the words, almost like she was untying a large knot. "It was like that feeling, like something is following you. And you want to look, you really want to look, but you don't, you can't." You've bungled it royally now, that little voice whispered. They probably think you've gone round the twist She shrugged, trying - and failing - to look nonchalant. "Probably should've turned the tin off first," she mumbled. "Won't -" she hiccuped again. "Won't happen again."

Just fyi I don't think the "ASL" aka the Orthodoxy would be against Innate magic. Unless I misread this and you're talking about Innates who can track the flow of magic travelling with the Orthodoxy, in which case that makes sense. However, I agree with Steel Inquisitive that it would be too restrictive to limit Innate magic usage in the way of women only getting one element of the power, men another.

I would think that the world is both too big and also not agreed-upon enough to have a measurable change in form or function. For the world itself to change, you'd have to have basically everyone believing the same thing - or perhaps even that wouldn't be enough. However, what do we want to decide about the cosmology of this world? Was it created by a "higher pantheon" that then just sort of got bored and went away? Is the world one giant Ritual circle that was designed by a god and continues to power itself? Are there things that are still on the earth that remember its true creation (these could be the "concept" gods mentioned in the classification lists like death or change or some other base concept)? I ask because this could form the basis of a larger plot arc, depending on how epic we want our problem to be.

I love Icelandic, it's a fascinating language! I took lots of Norse mythology in college so I am behind using Jörð if we want to. If all Innate mage women can and do see circles and runes automatically I am going to have to scrap my idea of swapping my itinerant deal-maker with a female Innate character because the whole Ritual magic setup confuses the daylights outta me and I don't want to have to write about circles and runes and whatnots. Edit: also if we're using Norse words can we please have a giant world serpent that forms the borders of creation? (kidding, but not, but...)

I'd say a constant, just for ease of use. As far as oldest culture goes, we should decide which of the two continents first gave rise to civilization/humanity. If it's the continent we're RPing on, then I'd pick an area near the coast or near a river. That central region with all the lakes looks pretty neat too, and it's far away enough to have that "old center of creation" mystical feeling to it. If it's the eastern continent, then we should decide who colonized and where they landed, then use that parent language.

I love inflection marks above letters, they always look so neat, but it's rare that I actually know what they mean. Thanks!

I like Erde, it's practical and easy to pronounce in your mind. Out of curiosity though, what are the phonetics on that first one?

I’ll talk to @xinoehp512 but I’d also like to know a bit more broadly what types of things people are interested in for big plots. There’s tons of potential in a world like this - what do you think would be fun? Suggestions will help us narrow down, even if we don’t reveal the main large events outright.

Yeah, so many of the names that are common in English-speaking countries are derived from Saints, which is both cool and frustrating. I'll link some name etymology sites into the Google doc to help people come up with something Germanic if they need it, though I agree about ignoring Saint names.

I'd go Germanic probably. It doesn't matter all that much to me though.

This is fine with me! Easy is usually good.

I just realized no one addressed your question about language/naming conventions, @kenod, but it's a good one. Since the parent culture of the countries around Kuria is Rusanic, and the city names sound relatively Slavic, I've been considering using naming conventions that sort of echo that culture. However, depending on what kind of feel we want to give the Kurian Bay (Mediterranean was a suggestion) we could alter that. Thoughts?

Re: gender equality, I would largely agree with kenod that we can - and should - take some liberties on how closely we follow a traditional medieval/Renaissance Europe feel. Ritual magic seems like a practice that everyone should be able to seek out and learn, and therefore it would not be unseemly for a woman to be a ritual mage or to study magic. Women being deified into goddesses would also increase equality across the board, since everyone could, in theory, become divine. I do, however, enjoy putting limits on a society if only because it is fun to find ways to circumvent them. If we do come up with gender rules and prohibitions, I think that there should be some put on each group.

@Nohadon just want to say that "Ati's Hand" is the coolest weapon name, well done!

"They are an ever shifting labyrinth that has infinite entrances that you can control with your mind," Mac paused for a breath, "Once you know those two things, all it takes is believing them. Once you truly believe them, you can alleytravel. All it takes is concentrating with an obscene amount of strength on where you want to go and how you want to get there." Ahh, Lita thought, nodding. It's like a con job. Convincing the world to let her have her way was something Lita had been doing for years. She'd watched her father soothe people since before she could walk, pushing one way so that someone would go another. She was no Soother, but she'd done her best with the gifts she was given. These alleys already had everything she needed - she just had to push the right way. A doorway to anywhere. Lita closed her eyes and burned tin as soon as Mac told her to concentrate on her surroundings. She scuffed her foot along the stone floor of the alley, felt the cool dampness of the concrete slabs on either side. There was a slight breeze - small, just enough to raise the hair on her arms and tickle her extra-sensitive skin. The air smelled cold, like iron and threatening rain. In between Mac's words, Lita concentrated on the silence of the alley. A hollow sound, almost empty. She opened her eyes again, memorizing the grey stone floor, the lighter grey walls, the dim sky. She walked forward three steps, and felt the world change. The walls were brick, red as rust. The sky brightened, bluer now, and the air seemed drier. Dirt crunched beneath the soles of her shoes, dusty and hard. Mac closed the path that they had just walked through then said, "I will come find you in 5 minutes if you can't get back." With that he disappeared. Lita wrinkled her nose. "Rusting dirty trick, that," she mumbled, kicking a small rock towards where he'd been standing. She blew out a deep breath, then squared her shoulders.Concentrate. She did so, recalling the smooth cobbles of the last alley, the dampness of concrete slab that never saw enough sunlight. The hollowness of the air, almost empty, like a bottle with one last sip of wine left. She remembered being there. She was there already, in her mind. Now, she just had to convince the rest of the world. Lita stepped forward, and the world stretched around her, then broke like wet parchment. The ground beneath her feet felt small, like a highwire, or a plank laid out over open air. She was balanced over something vast and uncaring. Blackness seeped into the corners of her vision, tugging at her mind. It whispered to her, quiet and certain as a creeping nightmare, calling her to look up, begging her to look up, commanding her to just look up. She felt her mouth open in what should have been a scream, fists clenched, nails digging into her palms, and still she walked forward. She looked forward, only forward. The alley, she had to get to the alley. It was cool and damp. Air like winter rain. Cobblestones. The sky... the sky was...grey... Turn. Turn now. NOW! Lita felt her feet pivot automatically, and she stepped off her highwire, plummeting into -- Her palms hit dark cobblestones, then her knees. Pain. A cold breeze shocked her skin - she'd started flaring her tin at some point. This was the alley... this was the alley, the right one. 5937. Concrete slabs rose to either side of her, and the sky had dimmed again to its damp grey. The sound though, it didn't sound right. That was when Lita realized she was still screaming. She stopped, coughed, then sat quietly in the center of the alley and let herself weep. @MacThorstenson @Voidus

Lita peered down the strange black alley with its white pathway and turned on a light burn of tin. She regretted it the moment she stepped out of the doorway, as the walls and pathway flashed in a dizzying array of color and light. Lita extinguished her tin, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment and willing her feet to remain exactly where they were. She opened her eyes; Mac was down the path a ways. The floor between them felt oddly insubstantial, like it wasn't quite real. Lita narrowed her eyes to slits and concentrated on her feet. The colors on the pathway pulsed with the rolling beat of her own steps. She walked, hardly daring to blink, until she arrived where Mac stood next to a doorway into another alley. Thankfully, this one looked normal. Nothing here is normal, she reminded herself. Lita looked up at the suited man, pushing her glasses further up her nose so she could see properly. Colorful spots popped and danced before her eyes, and she blinked hard, shaking her head a bit.