by D M Cornish
book(s) in the Half-Continent there is a whole library of catalogs and matters on monsters, habilistics, necrology and more; among the more necessary (other than the Vadé Chemica—see Book One—and related texts) are Ex Monsteria (by Wytwornic) and Phantasmagoria. Also there is the Nomenclator Animantium (unknown author), Historica Monstorum (a modern publication by Pellwick), De Dinpiscibus (on sea-nickers and kraulschwimmen by Aldrovand), Labyrinthion (an ancient text on teratology by Stabius and translated by Wünderhuber) and the strange and antiquated Historie of Fourfeeted Beastes by Topsell—to name but a few. Clysmosurgical Primer is a learned and rare book on the actual techniques involved in transmogrification (surgery making a person into a lahzar) complete with diagrams. Its sources are the ancient and even rarer writings of the Phlegms and most particularly the Cathars, now extinct races known for their skills and learning in such things. This is not a proscribed book as such in the Empire, but owning one is a sign of dabbling in unusual, esoteric things. Because of what is deemed dangerous content or encouraging outramour, it is illegal to sell many of these within the Empire, though not necessarily to own them. The banning of books is an inconsistent practice, with each state interpreting the laws differently, and it tends to be the paleologues (the “ancient texts”) that suffer the most restrictions. People of yore often thought very differently of the race of monster than folk of the Half-Continent do now.
Bookday Rossamünd’s birthday, as it is for every ward of Madam Opera’s Estimable Marine Society for Foundling Boys and Girls. See entry in Book One.
bossetation making gardens (what we would call landscaping). Though the making and planting of gardens might seem a worthy and peaceful pastime, its main purpose is to expunge the threwd, to keep the land tame.
bossock also known as a mayotte, the basic well-fitting proofed-silk (soe) harness of the calendars and one of their most distinctive items of apparel. It is made close to allow free movement and, while it prevents moderate lacerations, thicker items of proofing must be worn over it to give better protection.
Brandenard language of the Brandenards, the race who populate much of the northern Soutlands and even beyond and have contributed much to the exploration and expansion of the Empire’s mercantile and geographical interests; the Half-Continent equivalent of English. In HIR 1311 the Imperial declaration on the languages of its subjects, “The Correct Sounds to Instruct the People,” officially recognized Brandenard as the vulga lingua—the common language among peoples of differing states and even countries, the tongue of trade. Tutin, however, was declared—and is still regarded—as the language of education and politics.
Brandenbrass major city of the Grume. See entry in Book One.
bravo(es) generally any hired killer, but also used specifically to describe what we would call assassins; also known as pnictors or pnictardos (“stranglers”).
Briary, the ~; Briarywood small thorny woodland that stubbornly grows about the eastern end of the Pettiwiggin. It has been allowed to remain, as a source of firewood and small timber for the needs of both Winstermill and Wellnigh House.
bright-limn(s) small portable seltzer lights. See Book One.
Brisking Cat, the ~ wayhouse on the highroad of the Conduit Vermis, and one of the longest established in the Idlewild. Situated near the confluence of the Mirthlbrook and the Bittermere, it was founded three generations ago by the father of the current enrica d’ama, Madam Oubliette. The family of Parleferte (said “Par’leh’fert”), her steward, has served there for as long as the “Cat” has been open. A popular billet for many teratologists. Ever prone to grumbling, local townsfolk will complain bitterly of the coxcombry and inconvenience of knaves when they are bunked in the townships. It’s all very tedious. They want the work but not the persons who do it, so most pugnators prefer to stay in knaveries, cot-rents or wayhouses and avoid the nonsense.
brocander(s) sellers of secondhand clothing, particularly proofing.
bruicle tool of physics used for holding blood, made usually of glass or porcelain. Teratologists and punctographists use them too for storing cruor. The arrangement of one bowl inside another within a bruicle insulates the stored blood, keeping it viable for longer and making it ideal for carrying cruor back to your friendly neighborhood punctographist. See graille(s).
bully-dicey what we would call a meat pie.
burge(s) small flags for signaling, made in sets of distinct patterns for the representation of letters, numbers, cardinal points, titles of rank or social elevation, even whole words.The color of a burge is first and foremost for distinction, though the meaning of the colors can be inferred if a small multistripe, multicolored flag—known as the parti-jack—is flown with them. Burges are used for both civil and military purposes on land and the vinegar seas.
C
caladine also aleteins, solitarines or just solitaires; calendars who travel long and far from their clave spreading the work of good-doing and protection for the undermonied. The most fanatical of their sisters, caladines are typically the most colorfully mottled and strangely clothed of the calendars, wearing elaborate dandicombs of horns or hevenhulls (inordinately tall thrice-highs) or henins and so on.They too will mark themselves with outlandish spoors, often imitating the patterns of the more unusual creatures that their wide-faring ways may have brought onto their path. Claves tend to confine their actions to a defined jurisdiction known as a diet, and customarily seek permission to enter another clave’s diet. However, caladines have a unilaterally agreed right to travel freely from one diet to the next, though it is considered polite and proper to visit with the august while you are there. Sometimes a caladine is called by the local laude to produce credentials before getting an affirming nod.
calanserie, calanserai, calansery headquarters and home of a calendar clave, and therefore also called a clariary. Usually situated well away from urban buildup, out in more rural places where there is a greater need for the calendars’ work, though there are a few notable exceptions: the oldest clave-homes are found near cities and there are even calanseries in Catalaine, Millaine, Ives and Chastony. Calanseries are typically fortified against assault from both monster and man, especially given that several are home to sequesturies as well.
calendar(s) sometimes called strigaturpis or just strig—a general term for any combative woman; the Gotts call them mynchen—after the do-gooding heldin-women of old. Calendars gather themselves into secretive societies called claves (its members known as claviards), constituted almost entirely of women, organized about ideals of social justice and philanthropy, particularly providing teratological protection for the needy and the poor. They usually live in somewhat isolated strongholds—manorburghs and basterseighs—known as calanseries. Some claves hide people—typically women—in trouble, protecting them in secluded fortlets known as sequesturies. Other claves offer to teach young girls their graces and fitness of limb in places known as mulierbriums. Calendars, however, are probably best known for the odd and eccentric clothing they don to advertise themselves. Over the years a distinct nomenclature has emerged for the various “trades” within a calendar clave, for example:
♣ fulgar = stilbine
♣ wit = pathotine
♣ dexter = cacistin
♣ skold = pharmacine
♣ scourge = cheimin
♣ bane = sceptine
♣ sagaar = purrichin
♣ pistoleer = spendonette
♣ leer = astatine.
All kinds of teratologists form secret societies, but calendars are one of the few who generally seek the welfare of others. The calendar ranks in descending order are:
♣ carline—rare, revered and retired, sought for wisdom and adjudication
♣ august—the head of a clave
♣ laude—the second in charge and herald of the august
♣ cantin—assistant to the laude, lifeguard of the august
♣ caladine—equivalent in rank to a tome (but operating alone and errant)
♣ chaptin—fully approved and initiated sister
♣ pagin—initiate serving probationary period, entry-level.
See Appendices 2 and 3.
calendine of or pertaining to calendars.
Callistia, Damsels of ~ fabled beauties from the Heldinsage, ever-living beauties dwelling in the autumn-lands of the urchin-lords. Many tales of love unrequited and rapacious appetites and much misery surround them. The salient lesson in the histories of not putting too much stock on physical beauty is lost, however, on modern folk. For the idea of these mythic ladies has given rise to parades known as Callistia or callic-shows, beauty galas with awards for the most poised, graceful, well-turned out and rational girl in the show.
cantebank(s) peregrinating songsters and prosodists who also sell their talent for words to pen panegyrics for teratologists wishing to boast of their skills either to prospective employers or to be read out in a common room or other public place.
cantus properly called the cantus-and-laude, this is the creed by which a calendar clave lives and dies. Often it is rendered in abbreviated verse form so that it stays in the mind. Calendars are continually indoctrinated with their cantus till obedience to it is reflexive.The In Col umba Alat is an excellent example of a cantus, and each clave will have its own variation of such a creed. See In Columba Alat.
carum, dust-of-~ pronounced “kar’room,” one of the parts that go into the making of Craumpalin’s Exstinker. It comes as a gray powder made from the dried and ground buds of a type of seaweed commonly found along the entire southern coast of the Half-Continent.The dust is a common base for many powdered scripts.
caste small, fragile flasks usually made of glass or delicate porcelains designed to fracture when dashed against a hard surface. These are used to hold liquid potives that burst and react violently when released. Castes have to be stored and carried in padded receptacles; a salumanticum, for example, will have a reinforced pocket as part of the inner linings, divided into softly cushioned slots in which individual castes can be kept. Another method of carrying them is in a digital, a small, sturdy, well-cushioned container, usually of tin or pewter or wood, worn handy on a belt or in a pocket, into which four or five castes can be kept for easy use. There are some different types of digital, and they are common accoutrements of a well-prepared hucilluctor.
castigation(s) • (noun) severe punishments starting with time in the stocks and moving on to increasing strokes of the lash • (noun) period in the afternoon when defaulters are named and their punishments determined. These will typically be impositions; only very rarely will actual castigations be given, despite the grim name—only for larceny or brawling or some gross dereliction of duties. Prentices are often threatened with castigations, but these are empty threats (not that the prentices are usually aware of this) to keep them well in line.
cathared to be made into a lahzar, to have undergone transmogrification.
Cathar’s Treacle also called plaudamentum; draught imbibed by lahzars—both wits and fulgars—to keep their introduced organs from rebelling inside their bodies. See entry in Book One.
catillium, catillium-hat round, broad-brimmed, squat-crowned hat, usually made of straw and lined with felt.
catlin also called a catling; a long-bladed, long-handled surgical knife, sharply pointed and double-edged. The preferred tool in amputations and the making of major incisions.
Childebert one of Rossamünd’s fellow prentices; a fairly quiet but capable lad who paid Rossamünd little mind as they shared their lives in Winstermill.
Chill often used as a synonym for winter, but more specifically referring to the coldest months in the year—Pulchrys, Brumis, Pulvis and Heimio, considered usually an ill time for travelers.
chymistarium or test-barrow; cupboard or portable barrow where skolds and their ilk can make their potives. Very compact, with ingenious drawers and foldable sections, an entire miniature test crammed into as small a space as possible. Skolds may port the cupboard variety on a cart or carriage to take about with them or pull the barrow (or hire some sturdy rough to pull it for them) to make what they need when they need it. Not to be confused with a test itself, which is a whole room and its tools given to this purpose.
cicuration said “kick-u-ray-shun”; determined process of bringing the wilds under control by farming and cultivation, by digging and cutting and landscaping, and by colonization to bring the land fully under everyman control. It is a slow form of taming, but its effects are deep and long lasting. Even so, some places refuse to be brought under heel—such as the Harrowmath, large parts of the Mold, the Frugelle and so on. See also the Idlewild.
claustra small booths used in the more fancy alehouses, coffeehouses, wayhouses, tomaculums and any other such public place, made to seat no more than four comfortably. Designed to provide a modicum of privacy to guests, they were originally used in the less salubrious establishments to allow nefarious conversation to happen somewhat publicly without being too public. As is so often the case, the fashions of the wealthy romanticize and ape the daily realities of the less well-heeled, who in turn copy things they like from those of higher station—and so it goes around.
clave(s) group of calendars, particular and distinct, set to protect a defined area. A clave has its own unique mottle and spoors that its phrantry are expected to wear at all times with pride. Calendars in general hold to universal beliefs and rules, but a clave is free to emphasize or add bits as they see fit. The augusts of all the claves in a region may meet every so often to coordinate and bond. There is normally no real animosity between claves, and caladines tend to be the glue that keeps it all one big happy family.
Clementine capital city of the whole Empire; some may use the name Clementine when referring to the Emperor and his ministers as a collective; a general term for all the powers that govern the Empire. See entry in Book One.
clerk(s) at Winstermill these are essentially civilians with a military rank: few states have professional military staff. Given this, the most preferred clerks are concometrists, the combat-clerical graduates of athenaeums such as Inkwill, who are highly trained in both paper shuffling and the stouche.
clerk-master another rendering of the title Master-of-Clerks, slightly less formal and typically allowable in use only by those of higher rank.
coach-host harbor for post-lentums and other public carriages situated at a convergence of routes, where a passenger can while away minutes and hours either eating and drinking in the refectory or sitting and waiting in the parenthis. Coach-hosts are not wayhouses: they have no facilities to accommodate travelers, though folk are allowed to sleep in the parenthis if they wish, at no charge, sitting on hard benches and locked in at night with limited access to the jakes or refreshments and no bedding. Still, for those short of money this is a better option than a night exposed on the streets or in the wilds.
color-party small group bearing the colors before a body of soldiers. A typical color-party holds the colors—the flag that signifies the pride of its soldiers—and the pensills—the personal pendants of the officers in charge of that unit. A marshal’s color-party will also carry the spandarion. With the color-party will also go a drummer boy and a fyfesman beating time and encouraging their comrades with martial music.
Columbine(s) calendars belonging to the Right of the Pacific Dove.
Columbris calansery and sequestury of the Right of the Pacific Dove who otherwise call themselves Columbines, from the Tutin for “dove.”
combinade(s) hand arms that are a clever combination of melee weapon and firelock. The firing mechanism on most combinades is an improved wheel lock, being more sturdy than a flintlock, and able to take the jars that come when the weapon is used to strike at a foe. Added to this, the lock mechanism, trigger and hammer are usually protected by gathered bands of metal, a basket much like those protecting the hilts of many foreign swords.When edges and bullets are treated
with gringollsis, combinades become very effective therimoirs (monster-killing tools).
commerce men smugglers and other such illegal traffickers working in concert and with some kind of centralized leadership or organizer, an unduly respectable title for a very unrespectable lot. It is applied, a tad sarcastically, to all such folk whether they belong to an actual commerce society or not.
compeer how one peer may refer to another.
compliment what we would call a toast, when glasses are filled and touched together as things are declared and wished for.
Compter-of-Stores chief accountant of Winstermill, apparently of equal rank to the Master-of-Clerks, though in practice very much under the latter’s sway.
Conduit Felix, the ~ reputed to be the longest highroad in the Empire, reaching from Clementine, the Imperial Capital far in the north, through the very midst of the Grassmeer and on to Andover in Hergoatenbosch. The Conduit Felix is used to mark the separation of the Grassmeer into the Ager Magnus on the eastern side and the Solum Magnus to the west.
Conduit Vermis, the ~ proper name of the Wormway. See entry in Book One.
confectioner any seller of potives, whether skold, hedgeman or simple shopkeeper; also sometimes called fargitors (“makers of potpourri”), an ancient Tutin name for skolds given them when the first rhubezhals arrived from across the eastern mares.