Geart Marks

We have a new interesting find, but in order to show you what exactly was found, we first need to give you some basic historical information about this thing. I thought I would cram it all into one post, but it's getting too long, so today is history, and tomorrow is a find.

If you read "Islands", then in one of the last parts you might have noticed a dialogue about the "distinctive marks" of the Hvenvants, which they later passed on to the Jeharts. If you haven't read it, then it's not so scary either, because I'll explain everything.

The Khvenvant (specifically the northerners), when they migrated east (see the second appendix), stayed quite a while in the lands occupied by the Jearts (what would later become Eryakhshar) and had a very strong influence on their culture, language and religion. Until the eighteenth century, it was believed that they were the ones who brought the Jearts the custom of drawing pictures on their bodies showing their merits, occupation and the like. In fact, this custom existed before that - the Khvenvant simply developed and improved it greatly by their example.

The signs of the Eryakhshar Jeharts (at least those recorded) were distinguished by their diversity: there was the month of birth, and the clan mark, and the personal mark, and achievements, and in general almost the number of relatives. In fact, these drawings served as a kind of passport for the Jeharts, which could be easily read by another of their compatriots. They were applied with a special indelible paint containing symbiotic bacteria that penetrated into the hair follicle and produced pigment there. Very convenient, in general.

Later, when the local Jearts were battered by all sorts of Myngiz who had come running there, pushed back to the south and significantly reduced in numbers (yes, for some reason they were always very unlucky), many traditions were forgotten, including this one. That is why Kait did not wear any signs on himself.

But now Eryakhshar is rising from the ashes and remembering its forgotten culture - so let's wait and hope!

(in the first appendix - signs applied to the forehead and indicating the type of activity of the djeart)

Meet Berenice

While Berenice does not hear me and sits with her back to me, I will quickly tell you how we met.

In the seventh grade, I left my old school and went to an extra-fashionable lyceum, which was located right next to my house. In the class where I ended up, the guys were generally very nice and friendly, but it was quite natural that I immediately began to communicate with the Gearts (there were two guys there), but Berenike was not so lucky - she was the only Dverg we had.

As a creature similar to a bald dog, they tried to bully me not very aggressively, but by that age I already knew a lot of offensive jokes about mothers and responded with them - besides, my friends Arim and Zehar perfectly mastered the art of growling low and It’s unkind to look from under your brows.

Berenice, when we all more or less got to know each other and got comfortable, also began to be bullied - because of the beard that was just beginning to grow on her. She didn’t particularly react to the jokes, and the boys and I didn’t interfere either - until the very moment when she was squeezed in the school yard in the winter by a flock of guys from a parallel class. I didn’t even understand what happened then: one of them tried to pull her by the hair on her face, and then immediately found herself upside down in a huge snowdrift. The rest immediately fled, and Arim, Zehar, and I, impressed by her Dvergian kung fu, offered to join our company. Berenice happily agreed.

After school we were scattered all over the place. Berry went to Recinia, where she had some relatives, I stayed in Recan. Arim moved to his historical homeland, Eryakhshar, and Zehar is slowly finishing his master's degree in Germany. A little sad, but natural.

I call Berenice here - in case she remembers something else from her school days =D

All sorts of different things

I'm too lazy to write anything serious, so here are some very everyday news.

Berenice was taken into consideration as the only person here who was well versed in magic, and now she is simply running around like a squirrel in a wheel, assisting first one, then another, and sometimes all at once. That is why she does not write anything - she has no time for it.

I, on the contrary, spend more and more time sitting at the table and at the computer - on the first I have copies of texts and inscriptions, and on the second - the blog that I am currently running. Sometimes there is a desire to dig in the earth, but I immediately satisfy it with a sandwich with sausage.

A mole has taken up residence on the property where we live. The dog has dug up the entire lawn with the obvious desire to make it look like a chessboard. It doesn't want to be caught in traps - it goes around them. I have a feeling that if it doesn't calm down, I'll make a gas chamber for it right in its hole from a car exhaust.

On this positive note I will end. To all who are not sleeping - good night!

Ašaţ'ōḑḑy'ah

Now there will be a sudden post about... my last name.

In my passport it is written as Ашасоззьа, and in my thoughts I have to go and change its spelling to something like Ашасъоззьа. In Roman orthography it will look like Ašaţ'ōḑḑy'ah; yes, I agree, it’s better not to try to transcribe it at all, but that’s not my fault.

Now I'll explain why it's needed at all and what it means. My great-great (great?) grandfather migrated to Retsinia from the New World; why - the devil knows. My last name came with him, and if translated very roughly, it means something like "sun, the blackest of stars." I used to think that this story would plunge girls into a state of indescribable delight, but most of them usually just look at me strangely. And some - who know a little about the history of Aznatanian jewels in general - sometimes even start to avoid me.

The thing is, to put it bluntly, that almost all Aznatan Jeart tribes… ate people. In the absolutely literal physical sense. And at first, they hunted them, just like the predators from the movie of the same name. What is characteristic, but not very explainable - not the elves or dwarves, but specifically people.

It is clear that people were not their main diet, since the prey is not the easiest and most accommodating. But all sorts of initiation rites, holidays and similar things almost always had a successful hunt for humans as an integral element - sometimes it all ended with the slaughter of even entire tribes. It is due to this, among other things, that it was not possible to colonize the central territories of Aznata for so long - there were the most Jearts there. Even now there are tribes there, in which the great-grandfathers of the last living generation did not disdain to taste human flesh.

I think there is no need to explain how the local people treated the Jearts, even those who had nothing to do with this whole man-eating movement. That is probably why that distant relative emigrated. And even now the Jearts from Aznata are slowly flocking to Orova: here no one has ever eaten people, but rather the opposite.

This is such a sad story with a not very happy ending.

K A M E S H E K

We can say with a certain degree of certainty that the story with the pebble has come to an end.

Here's some new information: it once belonged to a man named Steinavarduz (Stainawarduz), which is translated from early Proto-Lavinavian literally as "Stone Guard". A bit ironic.

History has not preserved the patronymic of this young man, nor, incidentally, his occupation. It is only known that he was a sailor. Most likely, a pirate, or perhaps a merchant. In any case, he used this stone for navigation - if you look through the crystals of silver spar at the cloudy sky from different angles, you can determine the approximate position of the sun in this very sky.

Moreover, the crystal was also enchanted in a certain way, and it is still not very clear how. It is unlikely that it was originally intended to show the sun always, even when not asked for - most likely, this is a fairly common phenomenon, consisting of the transfer of the expected purpose of an object to a magical construct built around it (the so-called magical transfer).

And it also turned out that the light didn't fall on it: all the scientists had to do was just get close to the sword without opening the case, and this nonsense happened. Then they conducted several experiments, which I don't understand a thing about, and came to the conclusion that the owner of the sword once owned the stone. Once - because they found this stone in a burial from the twelfth century, and here, remember, we are in the middle of the fourth.

Well, finally, I have a fully finished render. This time - with graph paper to demonstrate the dimensions.

Okushaz

It's time to talk about the second magical phenomenon - okushaz (jeartoy oquşaz, from the verb oquş "to tie"). Here we will talk about all sorts of near-sexual things, so if you are scared, it is better to close your eyes right away.

Brief definition, like from a textbook: okushaz is a psychomagical phenomenon that manifests itself in the emergence of sexualized attraction between a dzheart and a person due to close physical contact. It does not depend on the gender of the individuals and lasts on average from two weeks to a month; the maximum recorded period is three months.

I won't talk about the physiology - let someone else explain that. I'd rather talk about the cultural aspect of this phenomenon.

First of all, "sexualized" means exactly what it means. That is, such attraction can be compared to half-romantic, half-sensual love - when you constantly want to be close to the object of passion, hug, cuddle, rub cheeks and do all sorts of similar things. It rarely happens that you want to jump into bed right now.

Secondly, even though we live in an enlightened and free time, okushaz is still very stigmatized - somewhere between menstruation and venereal diseases. If this happens to you, then it is not customary to talk about it, because you will get condemning shakes of the head and many sighs.

The roots of such attitudes should be sought in the time when the Jearts first began to live next to humans in the territories of Orova. Their relations, to put it mildly, did not go well right away: I have already written about the Urtians, who, without a second thought, decided to kill a bunch of Eryakhshars - and I can also mention the Hellenic-Roman invasion of their territory, when people made cloaks for themselves from the skins of those killed there. Excuse me, but even now I feel some kind of ogresia and my teeth are grinding.

In general, it is clear that with such a relationship, it was at least very strange for a dzheartu to fall in love with a person or vice versa. Over time, many religions reinforced this attitude, writing okushaz into the category of pernicious passions - including because it could be of the same sex. That's how we got what we have now.

The phenomenon itself is not so relevant nowadays, since there is a drug with a prolonged action (for both dzhearts and humans), which eliminates any possibility of its occurrence. But nevertheless, it happens that a dzheart has lived among his own all his life, and then ends up in human society - or vice versa - and then all sorts of incidents happen.

Finally, I will say honestly: this happened to me once too. But I do not regret it at all and consider the two weeks spent with that girl to be some of the brightest moments of my life.

Geart teeth

I was asked a very strange question today: do Gearts brush their teeth?

???

I won't give a direct answer because it's kind of obvious, but I'll just clarify a couple of points. Those of you who think that in the wild animals retain their teeth until old age and do not need to care for them are deeply mistaken.

Firstly, animals in the wild (the same Panthera) eat raw meat straight with all the tendons and fascia, which help clean the teeth during the chewing process.

Secondly, they often die before they begin to have dental problems in general.

Thirdly, if they start having problems with their teeth, they die because of them - so we can also say that “almost until old age there were no problems”

The device the Gearts use to brush their teeth looks like a regular toothbrush - and is one. If we compare them with human ones, Geart models are usually wider (see photo) - that’s the whole difference.

Attraction

The sun continues to shine from all the cracks, but we’ve somehow gotten used to it, so here’s a post for you. There are a great variety of different psychomagical phenomena, but only two of them (or rather, two groups) have been more or less well studied, researched, and most importantly, their existence has been proven. These two are the so-called attraction and okushaz. The second one is a little more interesting and piquant, so I’ll leave it for the next post, and here I’ll talk about the first one.

In fact, “attraction” is a general name for three phenomena at once: direct attraction, distraction and retraction. What, exactly, is the point: immediately after using this or that witchcraft, the person who performed it becomes:

  • or more attractive to certain people - it is an attraction;
  • or less attractive - this is a distraction;
  • or the opinion about his attractiveness changes to the opposite - this is retraction.

It is difficult to say when this phenomenon was first described - its mentions are found among the ancient Hellenes, and among the Glinnarians, and generally throughout the world at different times. However, they began to study it seriously only in the eighteenth century, and it generally looked very funny. The sequence was something like this:

- it was proven - it was refuted - it was refuted; divided into three different phenomena - collected back into one; decided that it manifests itself depending on the species - they refuted it...

In any case, now there is a consensus at least about its existence, and that’s good. Further - more difficult; it seems that its occurrence does not depend on anyone’s species - neither on the magician, nor on those who perceive it. But it seems to depend on the type of witchcraft that the magician does - and it’s also not entirely clear how. So far, we have only been able to find out that any healing spell causes exclusively attraction and never distraction - this is already some kind of progress.

The mechanism, apparently, is a little reminiscent of empathy: the remnants of magical structures located next to the magician are perceived subconsciously by other individuals and affect the degree of their disposition towards the magician. True, the problem is that attraction and distraction can be explained this way, but for retraction you have to pull the owl onto the globe. We wait and hope that one day scientists will be able to explain everything.

PEBBLE

Today I wanted to write a big beautiful post about some major psychomagical phenomena and the history of their study, but you know what? The damn sun is preventing me from doing this, very much.

Yes, yes, that’s exactly it: these guys with the stone from the museum had something go wrong with their experiment, and either the light got on the stone or something else. They swear and promise that in a couple of days they will correct all the consequences, and I really hope so.

In fact, there is some progress. Our sword, which is the Guardian, most likely belonged to the person who once owned this stone. I'll keep you posted.

In general, I’ve been having some problems with my memory lately, so here’s the plan for the upcoming posts:

  • psychomagical phenomena;
  • the end of the epic with the stone (when it will happen);
  • a little organizational nonsense and information on our further publications.

Stay in touch, and I'm going to drink Berenice with chamomile. Of all of us, she suffers the most from the vile luminary.

pebble

We continue the epic with the stone.

He came to us together with a whole delegation of scientists. Packaged in one opaque case and another opaque case - for a very funny reason. If light waves present in the spectrum of solar radiation fall on it, then all living beings within a certain radius begin to see this same sun, wherever it is. That is, it could be behind the clouds, behind the house, on the other side of the earth - if you look where it is, you will see it as clearly as in the sky.

This effect also lasts for at least a week, so it’s not pleasant, of course. If you try to photograph it, then everything is overexposed to the maximum and you end up with one indistinct bright spot.

For now, they will be conducting some experiments with the stone at our excavation site, and they provided me with a 3D model obtained using magonuclear scanning. I began to slowly have fun with it and already have the first rudiments of a render - it is not yet of very high quality, but it is quite understandable.