Paksworld

100,127 words by midnight Tuesday night.

Interesting stuff, some of it, too.  Kieri is having to cope with a very difficult situation and he’s settling down and putting his strategic mind on.

Can an ancient elf-queen be wrong?   Can she, in fact, screw up in a major way?

Inquiring minds will find out, once I know all the answers.  I don’t ever know all the answers until later (which means some re-writing, where I’ve gone astray, guessed wrong.

I’d like to stay home and work on this today but it’s not possible.  Plumbers coming to rip out the toilets and put in new ones,  a guest to pick up at the airport 60 miles away, business conferences, Ash Wednesday services, choir practice…

Over on the website,  part one of the People section is now up and live.  It covers the basic groups, some of which–elves, dwarves, and gnomes– have been discussed on this blog.   I took out some bits of the blog info as not really necessary, and added some.

Additional groups discussed include the kuaknom/iynisin/dark cousins–those “fallen” elves the others don’t like to mention–and four basic, distinct human lineages: the Old Humans of the north, the magelords who came over the sea from Old Aare to Aarenis (and later, the north), the horse nomads,  and the Seafolk.    The people in the far west, beyond Kolobia, are peripheral enough (so far!) that they’re not being included.

Eventually (but not immediately–need to spend more time on the books proper) there’ll be more background information on specific people–both “current” (in book terms) and historical (ditto), myths and legends, religions, etc.

Elves in Paksenarrion’s world are one of the Elder Races: they believe they are part of the First Song of the Singer, the Eldest of the Elder.  The Earthfolk (dwarves and gnomes) disagree, but don’t bother to argue.   In their own tongue, they are the Sinyi, the Sung.   Most are tall (the average elf is taller than the average human, though there’s overlap.)    From the human perspective, there are multiple contradictions: elves loathe war and claim that their innate love of harmony makes conflict more painful to them–and yet they can be touchy, easy to offend, and even quarrelsome.   Elven grudges last millenia…a fact that comes into play in the second book of this series in particular.   In the immediate area of the first and part of the second book, the ranking elf is Flessinathlin, the Lady of the Ladysforest, referred to as the Lady.  Kieri, King of Lyonya, is her grandson through her daughter.

The most important of the elvish powers,  to elves themselves, is the taig sense–the ability to sense and communicate with the “consciousness” of all living things.   This is believed to result from their being part of the First Song, in which they still participate, and they can “sing the taig awake”.   Next in importance, and related, is the ability to heal the taig, and its components.

Paksenarrion, some of you recall, joined up with Macenion, who told her he was a half-elf (he wasn’t, though he had a touch of elven blood and knew how to present it.)   Part-elves may or may not look elvish, and have varying amounts of elvish power.   This leads to many interesting situations…including in the current series.

Read the rest of this entry »