The Gryphon Clerks: Mike Reeves-McMillan

Archives: Wiki Pages

  • Energy Magic

    Energy, in dwarvish definition, includes anything nonmaterial which acts at a distance. Most energy magic is concerned with light and heat, but there is also the magic of sound, and forms of distant force which push and pull. Most energy magic except the very simplest movements of light and heat requires the use of crystals of various kinds.

    The commonest form of energy magic involves moving energy to or from another, parallel space or dimension. Even minimally trained humans can summon a weak light and enough heat to start a fire, but advanced practitioners can create devices which draw in enough energy to heat water for steam (as a working fluid for vehicles and to power factories) or to smelt metals. Other applications include cooling (by moving heat away to a cooler space) and, of course, magical lights which are reliable, bright and cool. All of these devices require crystals to stabilise the gate, so they are expensive to buy (and have to be maintained regularly), but cost nothing to fuel.

    An application of energy magic to sound is the privacy rug, which prevents words spoken within its bounds from being heard outside it.

    Personal shields can be made which protect the wearer from projectile weapons by creating an interdiction field around his or her body. They are very expensive (they require diamonds as a base), not especially powerful, and uncomfortable to wear because of the loud humming noise.

    A university-trained human practitioner of energy magic has a red stone (garnet or ruby, usually) set in his or her metal bracelet.

    Hope at Merrybourne is a prominent energy mage.

  • Dwarfholds

    Dwarfholds mentioned:

    Thunder Gorge, in the northwest of Denning (Northriver province) – destination of Pack of Sevenhills.

    Sevenhills, home hold of Pack.

    Gulfport, current home of distinguished dwarves who complain to Victory about Gnome Day.

    Finestone, home hold of Leverage (original boss at the Clever Man’s Works).

    Golden Mountain, home hold of Escapement, Craft Master of the Jewelers and Devicers.

    Ironrock, home hold of Loadbearing, Craft Master of the Engineers and Metalsmiths.

    Copperhills, home hold of Deal, Craft Master of the Traders and Logisticers.

    Red Hills, home hold of Sublimation, Craft Master of the Substancers and Mages.

    Double Peak, near Mount Morin, home of Torsion and Sprocket.

    Coppercast, not far to the east of Old Koslinmouth. The Coppercast dwarves are New Dwarves.

    Prospectors go out, and where they see certain signs that indicate valuable ground, they talk to the landowner and to the Localgold and get a license to investigate further, with an option to buy the land for its value as farmland—plus a bonus, if the potential of the place is realized. Then they dig a test pit, and see what the subsoil and the rock are like, and what minerals there are.
    If they decide to proceed, they call in their option to buy the land, and bring in their relatives, and dig. And once the hold is established, it is a free city, beholden to nobody, self-governing.
    (However, the dwarfhold is taxed to maintain the roads that ship their products out.)

    The Gnome Party wants to found gnomeholds along the same lines as dwarfholds and with similar privileges.

  • Drugs

    Herbal teas are commonly drunk, including:
    – greyleaf (liked by Hope at Merrybourne)
    – redleaf
    – lemonleaf (liked by Hope at Merrybourne)
    – sweetbark
    – sourbark (favourite of Bucket, also enjoyed by Rosie Printer)
    – willow bark (for medicinal purposes, i.e. aspirin)

    Bant is a narcotic similar to heroin.

    Kilk nuts are chewed by the lower classes – addictive.

    Gnomes use various forms of mushrooms as recreational and mood-altering drugs (as well as for many other purposes). These are sometimes brewed into drinks, which may also have an alcoholic component.

  • Courts

    Courts are kept by magistrates. At one time, these were all Golds, who each heard cases from their demesne, but in more recent times trained and paid magistrates are often hired by the Golds to sit in their place. Most crimes require only one magistrate, but serious crimes, like murder, require three in most localities.

    Order is kept with a bell, rung by the magistrate, and usually with an attached mindspell to calm those present. The bell is also rung after the verdict is announced.

    Two advocates appear, accusing and defending. Their task is to assemble a coherent narrative to support their side’s version of events, based on witness testimony and evidence. Testimony is taken under truth-geis, often administered or at least monitored by the magistrate.

    The magistrate may, at his or her option, question a witness first, or may hand this function over to one of the advocates, after which the other advocate takes a turn. The accusing advocate questions the witness first after the magistrate.

    Even if events occur such that no trial is necessary, the responsible magistrate must still make a finding and enter it into record, if a charge has been made formally. For example, if the accused dies, there is still an investigation, and if the case is settled out of court the magistrate must still be involved in closing it off and ensuring that no coercion or avoidance of justice has occurred. If they are satisfied, they will record it as resolved by restitution, without conviction.

    Even a guilty plea does not remove the necessity to offer supporting testimony and evidence and map out a clear story of events, though it does reduce the time required, since the defender no longer argues for the accused’s innocence. The defender may, however, urge mitigating circumstances.

    Cases are often settled with an agreement to pay a harmgeld, which can be a monetary fine, goods or services, to the victims or their families. There may also be a geis placed on convicted criminals to prevent them from reoffending in a similar way, with their cooperation. Prison is also used to prevent dangerous criminals from reoffending, though Victory is working on reducing the prison population and keeping only the truly dangerous and unreformable there, whereas her predecessor Glorious was given to imprisoning anyone who disagreed with him.

  • Clothing Indicating Professions

    Lawyers wear a round, shoulder-width, poncho-like piece of cloth (a chasublet). They also carry distinctive document satchels. For ordinary lawyers, the chasublet is black, but magistrates wear a grey one.

    Healers wear a round hat, usually white, though mindhealers wear a black one.

    Professors wear a long scarf hanging down either side of their front, like a stole.

    An Asterist scholar wears a three-cornered hat. Scholars of Oversight wear a hat with three lobes.

    Mages don’t have a specific style of dress, except that they tend to wear “mage sleeves”, three-quarter length to show their bracelets. Members of the Council of Mages wear garments like severely shrunken waistcoats (finishing just under the armpits), with puffy shoulders and gold braid.

    Members of the military wear a fore-and-aft hat, with a badge indicating their branch of service.

  • Childhood’s End Rites

    In human cultures (both Asterist and Earthist), childhood’s end rites mark a transition from being a child to being a “betweener” or pre-adult. Typically, an age cohort will go through their rite together, at such time as a sufficient proportion of the girls have begun to menstruate (this is not an exact proportion, but is based on the judgement of the parents concerned).
    Depending on the locality, there may be changes in clothing and hairstyle to show that one has had one’s rites.

    See also adulthood rites.

  • Centaurs

    Inhabitants of the Plains of Coriant, and formidable fighters. They handily produced victory in the “Incident” between Coriant and Denning during Constance‘s youth.

    Named centaurs: Tree Stonecircle

    They often act as caravan guards for the dwarves. Centaur caravan guards are all called “Muscles”, regardless of their given names.

    Following Unification, Koslin is in talks with the centaurs towards a peace treaty similar to the one that formerly existed between Denning and Koskant, though with an additional “military assistance if requested” clause.

  • Carnival of Fools

    An entertainment featuring clowns, used as a metaphor for a chaotic situation.

  • Brain Machine

    The Master-Mage Amiable and his graduate students built a brain machine that could read and record patterns of brain activity, based on sophistications of the blood-flow spell discovered by Hope at Merrybourne. Hope and Dignified Printer improved this machine and enabled it to feed back in the other direction in an unsuccessful attempt to reverse Hope’s curse.

  • Books

    The following books exist:

    The Red General‘s book
    Mechanical Devices Illustrated and Annotated (owned by Rosie Printer, another copy owned by the Clever Man’s Works)
    Love Matters – relationship manual, by Mindhealer Lily and a colleague (copies owned by Hope, Briar and Rosie), based on:
    A Treatise Concerning the Arts of Love: For the Instruction of the Inexperienced (owned by Victory)
    Cheerful of Narrowneck’s The Methods of Sleep (owned and used by Victory and Determined)
    Methods and Techniques to Attain Command of Oneself and Others, an anonymous book by an Elvish author, discovered by Victory in her family’s library and later communicated to Determined. It includes graded exercises, and instructions for the mindmagic known as “glamour”.