Say, what?
The content is made even more inexplicable by being labeled in Japanese and set against those pop-art patterns.
Say What?
Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/22/18: Perfumes
The making of perfume is almost as old as human agriculture. A perfume-making operation dating to around 4000 BCE was unearthed on the island of Cyprus in 2005, which is when humans were still in the Bronze Age. The Indus Valley civilization produced perfumes a few hundred years later, and Babylon in 1200 BCE. It was the Islamic world, however, that perfected the techniques for extracting and preserving scents, as well as cultivating the plants used in scent production. These techniques passed into Europe with their trade.
Large-scale commercial perfume manufacturing began in the early 20th century as knowledge of chemistry increased. The most familiar scents dating from this time are Chanel’s timeless Chanel No. 5. and Coty’s Emeraude. Emeraude was perhaps a turning point. Before it, scents had not-too-appealing names like Jicky, Jocky Club, and English Fern; after it, more romantic and fantastical monikers took the stage, like My Sin, Shalimar, Joy, and Tabu. In the modern age anything goes, from the femme fatale implications of Opium and Poison to the more innocent Love’s Baby Soft, marketed to high school girls.
In case you need a made-up perfume, here’s some random generated ones.
Perfumes
| Amydhis
Scarlet Paradise Moonpassion Midnight Spice Red Tango Sleeping Eden Rising Goddess Idouvre Passion Belle Black Palm Enchantis Mystic Lake Beautiful Willow Kysa Silver Dream Marais Tarramin |
The Huntress
Sacred Wood My Crush Tarama My Secret Acrobat Leilandré Samilla Voodoo Miss Rising Elixer Dreaming Venus She-Devil Spicevember Phantom Golden Cinnabar Gray Dove Pantherine White Fur |
Devil Dance
This prancing devil has real style.
Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/15/18: A Few Noble Families
Here’s something a little different, a set of randomly generated noble families (with a little tweaking) for use in a roleplaying game or as story background. I find that when these disparate elements are put together, the story or adventure may practically write itself.
What would happen, for example, if Vylen Lemugia returns home and finds his cousin does not want to give up the seat? What if Vylen then entices Parapha Ithrilmarsh, through seduction perhaps, to help him get back into power?
Ready-made noble families
| House Alaartis | The Alaartis are a noble family of good-looking astronomers who serve the current king. Their seat is at Streudberg Fortress which also houses their many telescopes and star-gazing instruments. They have foreign investments, chiefly in the textile trade. It is with these the current head, Lemelaura, concerns herself. Lemelaura is a voluptuous, middle-aged woman with a scandalous past. She is widowed, but has many lovers. Her eldest son Barceaso has been chosen as the heir to succeed her. The crest of this family is a chained and collared lioness on a field of yellow. |
| House Uberwinter |
House Uberwinter controls the largest caravansary in the city and they also own a number of warehouses. The family has a reputation for being open and outgoing. The current Duke, Tamnesham, is a handsome, stocky man in his mid-30s. He is unmarried, but patronizes several courtesans. Their seat is at Skyhessen and their crest a red castle on a black background. |
| House Lemugia |
The well-educated Lemugia family control the city’s armories from their holding at Vitchhessen Fortress. They are also moneylenders and speculators. The current head, Edyseas, is serving as regent for his cousin Vylen Lemugia, who is in his early 20s but being educated overseas. The family’s crest is a severed hand dripping red blood on a maroon background. Their motto is, “Without knowledge, there is no gain.” |
| House Inthrilmarsh |
The greedy, ambitious Ithrilmarsh family make their fortune crafting various poisons. They are also invested in silver mines to the west of the city and currently own two mining outposts. The current Lord, Jozuph, is an elderly, effete man who is rumored to have a wasting disease. His heir is his granddaughter Parapha, his other children having suffered “accidental” poisonings in learning their family’s craft. The Ithrilmarsh rule from Nostorof Tower overlooking the Garden District. Their crest is a pair of scales above a shepherd’s crook. |
| House Yieland |
House Yielant owns the majority of the farmlands around the harbor. They are the most boisterous of the city’s noble families and imposing in appearance, tall and strong with curly black hair. Lord Somunaë keeps them in line with a combination of judiciousness and tact. He enjoys hearing news from foreign travelers and will often host them in his castle. He and his wife, Shenice, have five children. Their seat is at their ancestral town of Garamond and their crest is a gray vulture wearing a crown. |
Loup-Garou
Beware the Loup-Garou! Especially if he’s turned green.
Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/8/18: Heraldry
Crests of modern cities in Germany.
Top row, left to right: Stuttgart, Nurnberg, Tubingen.
Middle row: Atzelgift, Honigsee, Nachtsheim.
Bottom row: Falkenfels, Trechtingshausen, Flogeln.
The production designers for George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones TV series have done a smashup job creating a fantasy world like Medieval Europe (in spite of those ice-zombies and dragons) and that includes crests for the feuding noble families of Westeros… from a Kraken for House Stark, to the more conventional lion for House Lannister, the most villainous characters of the show. Real-world crests, however, out-do them in terms of sheer weirdness, as the above illustration shows.
The use of coats of arms and crests, in the European sense, grew out of medieval warfare. (Japanese nobles had their own crests and system for designing them.) Men in the units needed a way to identify their own side in the thick of battle and lacking cell phones and radios, came up with simple, brightly colored patterns that could be discerned across far distances. The designs were often worn in the form of a surcoat, a loose tunic worn over their armor. In times of peace, the crests identified individual knights in jousts and other festivities. Family crests grew from these simple origins to include symbols relating to heroic deeds, fiefs, origins, sources of income, and marriages and other alliances. Over time municipalities, guilds, and schools adopted crests as well. A whole language grew around the need to describe and design coats of arms; The History Learning Site of the UK as well as Historic UK gives helpful information about these more technical aspects. And if you want to make your own, this site is easy to use.
Coats of Arms, Crests, and Sigils
A golden scythe between two green, striking snakes
Closed book with yellow covers on an azure background
Roaring, rampant lion on a field of green
Knight in black armor holding a war hammer and a round shield
An upside down arrow in a ring of ten stars
A staff above a sheaf of wheat
Pelican holding a red banner against a calm ocean
Two krakens separated by a yellow vertical stripe
A white lily surrounded by six eight-pointed stars
A sleeping lion beneath an azure ewer pouring water
Two yoked and standing oxen, each facing a dancing satyr
Red rhinoceros in battle with a wild boar
Vintner seated on a wagon within a ring made of bunches of grapes
Five unlit candles above a beetle wearing a crown
A gorgon seated on a stool within a circle of trillium flowers
Seven interlocked spirals in different colors
Six crescent moons on a blue background
Golden cockatrice standing on a seashell against a field of brown
Sea-lion holding a ship’s wheel between its front claws
Purple merchant ship in silhouette, against a sky blue background
Maiden riding a bull and holding an upraised sword
A swimming eel on a background of white and purple stripes
Swan with stag’s horns
Gray fox seated in frontal view between two burning birch trees
A sleeping rabbit with four suckling young beneath a gold chalice
The Cool Girl
The Cool Girl
A horror trifle I wrote in two hours, flexing my Lovecraft muscles. Slightly NSFW.
Lexi wanted to be one of the cool kids at Miskatonic Prep.
The Cool didn’t call themselves that, of course. The not-cool had named them that. The Cool had the latest clothing, the hottest haircuts, the most current buzzwords, activities, and interests. Their coolness didn’t come from socioeconomic status, or intelligence or social savvy. If Lexi could articulate the quality, it was as if some deity had touched them with her/his/its fingers, elevating them above the rest. Those who were cool knew they were cool, and it gave them an easy grace in the world. They were the ones those cup of life was filled to brim. Those they gave their favor to were touched by their magic, and in time, they might become cool as well.
Lexi was attractive, intelligent, had a wealthy pedigree, but she was not one of the cool ones. Her family had moved to Arkham eight years ago and were still seen as newcomers, while the cool ones were oldbloods. If she was honest with herself it was for a lack of concentrated effort. She had an inner revulsion to whoring herself to her betters in the hope their specialness would rub off. But it was also because she suspected she didn’t have any potential to be special, and so didn’t even try.
It was a fact of life at Miskatonic Prep that the Uncool whispered often about the Cool, and what the Cool had supernaturally given or taken to get that status. There was a rumor of caverns beneath the school, accessed via secret tunnels in the dormitories’ laundry room, and also of ceremonies in the woods. Other rumors were of spells chanted into bathroom mirrors marked with blood. Lexi scoffed at these, but one night, drunk on stolen liquor, heartsick for a Gitane-puffing Cool boy who didn’t know she existed, she crept out of the room she shared with her roommate and headed for the girl’s bathroom down the hall.
Universal Indifference
Do you think the universe actually cares about you?
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