The Gryphon Clerks: Mike Reeves-McMillan

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  • Betweener

    More or less equivalent to “teenager”, a betweener is someone of an age between child and adult. Specifically, they have had their Childhood’s End Rites but not had their Adulthood Rites. They are probably physically capable of reproduction (since childhood’s end rites are based approximately on menarche), but they are not considered mature enough by their society to form an oathbond. There are Asterist social and legal sanctions against sexual activity with betweeners by adults, though in some societies (especially Earthist ones) some sexual activity is sanctioned among betweeners themselves, and even adult-betweener relationships are often accepted. Sexual activity with or between children (those who have not had childhood’s end rites) is universally proscribed, including in the Code of Willing.

    The exact beginning and ending age varies at different places and times, but betweener status generally begins around 11-13 and ends around 16-18, lasting for approximately five years. During these years, betweeners are prepared for their adult responsibilities and roles.

    For the educated classes, status as a betweener corresponds to the last years of schooling, and so high schools are often referred to as “betweener schools”.

  • Beastheads

    The beastheads inhabit the land to the south of the Sea of Turfrae. There are three kinds: the cattleheads, who are herders of cattle, horses, goats and sheep, sometimes nomadic but often in fixed pasturelands; the dogheads, who are farmers and occasionally fishers; and the catheads, who are hunters, messengers and warriors, helping to protect the settlements of the other two kinds and the camps of the nomadic cattleheads.

    The whole society was designed by a team of elves led by Kulendal, a Mengele-like experimenter who was also responsible for Breeze Ashgrove and Wave Rocky Islet‘s peoples.

    Beasthead society is largely peaceful and stable, thanks to the code known as vel. Vel is not just a set of laws, but a way of life and behaviour covering every aspect of being a beasthead. The advent of the “flatfaces” from Denning and Koskant threatens to disrupt vel, and provokes intense debate over what it is and is not and whether it can adapt to new circumstances.

    The beastheads were created to renew land damaged in an ancient war, again guided by vel and the lifemagic the elves imparted to them. They have been doing this ever since Empire times, slowly moving westwards. They were also expected to supply food to the Isle of Turfrae when it was the imperial capital, and continued to do so even after it was taken over by humans, though the trade stopped for a while as the human population of Turfrae diminished to the point where the island became self-sufficient. More recently, with the foundation of the College of Ancient Turfrae and the westward expansion of the beastheads, trade has resumed, not without tensions with the Human Purity movement based on Turfrae.

    The beastheads are not usually animalistic, but under great stress they can enter a state known as och, in which the mind of the beast becomes dominant. Those who are unable to control their och are exiled.

    Beastheads oathbind only to their own kind (cattlehead, doghead or cathead), since the three kinds are not interfertile. Inevitably, couples do form between members of different kinds, but it is socially frowned upon as not in accordance with vel. The word for such a couple is charha, and it is considered a term of contempt. Other kinds of unions which cannot be fertile are also called charha (such as same-sex couples). Couples of the same kind who happen not to be fertile are not considered charha, but pitied as unable to fulfill a part of their vel, namely the raising of children.

    The beastheads do not have any gnomes or dwarves among them (the land has no mineral deposits to speak of), and do not work metal themselves, so they eagerly trade for metal tools. Their own tools are made from hardened wood, stone, or a kind of ceramic worked by magic so that it will take an edge and not shatter easily.

  • Airhorse

    A kind of four-wheeled motorcycle powered by compressed air, with or without an onboard compressor to top up its tank.

    Invented by the gnomes of the Clever Man’s Works as a way for Hope at Merrybourne to get home safely at odd hours.

    Raced by Hope and Briar Heathlake in a promotional race to get investment funds, arranged by Thorn Highrock.

    A racing league now exists, with three colour schemes: red-and-brass, like Hope’s machine (adopted by the Gold class, among whom Sturdy of West Longleaf and his son are prominent); green-and-chrome, like Briar’s machine (adopted by the Silver class, such as Fair Tanner); and blue-and-copper (adopted by the Copper class, notably the Workers’ Co-op Association).

    There are three prizes for each race: the machine which is ahead when the first of them runs out of air, the machine which runs out last, and the machine that goes furthest.

    Other early adopters of the airhorse are the Carters’ Guild (represented by Berry Carter and Reliable Carter at the investors’ meeting); Cheerfulness Stabler, who runs the largest livery stable in Gulfport (forthright, florid and heavily built, wears tan Victory suits).

    Rosie Printer was also present at the investors’ meeting, where she asked a question about power loss from using compressed air instead of employing steam power directly.

  • Adulthood Rites

    All cultures, including the dwarves and gnomes, have some form of adulthood rite by which a person makes a transition to adult status. An adult can be oathbound, witness an oathbond ceremony, vote and so forth.

    Typically, an age cohort who went through childhood’s end rites together will go through adulthood rites together at around the time that the first few members of that cohort begin to exchange promises of oathbond (usually late teens). Among the educated, completion of basic education corresponds with adulthood rites, and this, rather than oathbonding, is the stronger association for most educated people.

    The mentally deficient are not granted adulthood rites, and the insane may have them officially reversed.

    A pre-adult or “betweener” who, with parental permission, oathbinds (usually because of pregnancy) is generally granted adulthood rites as part of the oathbond ceremony.

    See also Childhood’s End Rites.

  • Writing Systems

    Dwarvish is written using square-based glyphs which are the same as the sixteen Dwarvish numerals, rotated one-eighth of a turn to the left. It’s written right to left.

    There are eight “stoppers”, sounds which can’t be extended in time without repeating them: K, Ch, T, P, G, J, D, B.
    There are eight “sliders”: R, F, S, M, L, V, Z, N.
    Written with a central dot, the sounds are softened or made breathy. The breathy versions of S and Z are Sh and Zh, the others just sound breathier.

    See Dwarvish Language.

    Human languages are written in the Dwarvish alphabet for day-to-day use, modified with vowel markers since Dwarvish doesn’t use vowels. The vowel markers are simply tiny diamond-shaped marks, made with the pen tip, at one or more of five heights on the side of the square they precede or follow. If two vowel marks are shown, the vowel is a diphthong, though these are uncommon in most human languages.

    Elvish script is rounded, beautiful, and used for high-culture purposes such as literature, social invitations among the Gold Class, and calligraphed Oath Records. Elvish, in contrast to Dwarvish, is full of vowels.

    In the Pektal-speaking lands, at least, there’s a convention about ink colours, as follows:

    Blue is for commercial correspondence.
    Black is for official purposes.
    Red is between lovers and friends.
    Purple is within the family.
    Green is for education and between academics. (The Master-Mage’s letter to Hope would have been in green ink.)
    Brown is for religious correspondence.

    Books are printed in black ink for readability, however.

  • Workers’ Co-Op Association

    A number of Workers’ Co-ops exist which buy bulk items for their members, thus making them available more cheaply than normal retailers. Any profits are returned to the members periodically. They also function as insurance mutual societies, providing assistance to ill members and their families or those affected by disaster or layoffs, paying for funerals and providing benefits to the widows and orphans of members.

    Because individual co-ops are often owned by people who work together, exposing them to risk if the factory goes under and everyone looks for benefits at once, they have banded together to form the Workers’ Co-op Association. The Association will redistribute funds from other co-ops if one of them is stricken in such a way.

    This is all wonderful, but control of the Association means control of considerable funds, and since the reign of Realmgold Glorious (who more or less drove them into the arms of the resistance to his rule) there is a persistent link to organised crime, money laundering and intimidation of inconvenient parties. The leaders of the Association tend to be large, scary men who have gained their positions through fear. Anyone found embezzling funds is, of course, kicked out and brought to the Realmgold’s justice, but there have been killings to prevent this kind of revelation happening in the past and probably will be again.

    Truculent Roper is, at one time, in charge, and is later succeeded by his son Rock.

    The Workers’ Co-op Association is also a force in the world of airhorse racing (where it sponsors the blue-and-copper team), and, as at the initiation of the Assembly, in politics.

  • Wheel

    Gnome, Senior Planner at the Clever Man’s Works until he replaced Gizmo as manager. In the process, he transformed the Works staff into a company which he headed.

    His father was a dwarf, a fact that he kept quiet until the family was forced to reveal it. His stepfather Valve is relatively wealthy. Bucket courts his sister Braise.

  • Western Bird

    A large island at the western end of the Gulf of Koskant, almost the westernmost point of Koskant. It is so named because its shape looks like a bird in flight.

    Birthplace of Hope at Merrybourne, it is the seat of the Countygold of the Western Isles. His manor, Merrybourne, is built in the elven style, and looks like a hill with windows.

    One of the villages on the island is called Oakdown.

  • Vigilance Soldier

    Denninger general. She supports Determined and accompanies him into exile in the Tussocklands. “An iron-haired, steel-spined, brass-throated woman with a reputation for fierce precision.” Her family have served in the Denninger military for generations.

    After Unification, she becomes part of the Inner Council.

  • Victory Suit

    Named after Victory, who always wears a pure white one. Nobody else dares to wear one in white, and relative status is indicated by how pale one’s Victory suit is. Very low-status people, such as newly qualified Junior Clerks, wear black or other very dark colours.

    Professionals’ suits tend to be blue or green. Businesspeople and merchants wear shades of brown. Gryphon Clerks wear greys.

    Hope at Merrybourne has a ruby-red one to match the stone in her mage bracelet that indicates she is an energy mage.

    A Victory suit is a shirt and trousers in the same colour, with no coloured pattern, cut simply. Victory wears one with a subtle pattern of flowers worked into its texture on the occasion of her oathbond ceremony.

    The Victory suit is in deliberate contrast to the style associated with the previous Realmgold, Glorious, who dressed in a gaudy and extravagant fashion: elaborately-embroidered, gold-braided waistcoats, puffed and slashed sleeves, puff-leg trousers, hand-tooled leather boots with serpentine gilded patterns. Even though Victory’s reign is even more economically prosperous than Glorious’s, she cultivates an understated, elegant public aesthetic more or less by force of character.