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[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Some Foundationverse ideas

For those who don't know, the Foundationverse is a collaborative fictional multiverse based around the concept of a shady organization who, to put it simply, seeks world domination by containing anything they deem anomalous (sometimes arbitrarily, but usually not). The main foundation (pun intended) is the thousands of articles describing things they catalogue if not contain in a clinical fashion, and the most confusing part is that those articles were in-universe written in at least a few different parts of the multiverse, with some of those being more obvious than others. Therefore, some main-list ones have the same amount of all-around canon as the joke articles, especially most of the 001 set, a special set of mostly contradictory supposed origin stories.

The most popular aspects are some very specific articles, so much so that creativity surrounding that tends to not focus even remotely on the Foundationverse as a whole. As one who loves worldbuilding, I prefer to focus on that, especially the anthropological aspect.

Here are some ideas for concepts I intend to write stuff about:

GoI: Groups of interest (to the SCP Foundation, anyway)

The Homsar Reservation: The “The” is part of their name. This surreal humorist anartist (anart, as in anomalous art, artist) group frequently makes Homestar Runner and Battle For Dream Island references, although more as in organization than in their work. They have some hats that allow one to speak Homsarese, the language in Homestar Runner the very odd character Homsar speaks most of the time, which consists of what sounds like funny English word salad. They also frequently use some linguistic humor from Homestar Runner, such as unnecessary inclusions of ‘the’ before certain words and phrases, using ‘total’ and ‘style’ in strange ways, and using some made-up words from the setting. They also have bembers, bembs, and membs (an extrapolation of a BFB reference) in addition to members. Also, many articles would have a title based on a Homsar quote, which usually begins with “Uh-uh-uh-uh...”.

Brotherhood of the Fallen Knights: A Church of the Broken God (basically anachronistically advanced remnants of the Mycenaeans in-universe) sect from Medieval Europe with an Arthurian theme and, unlike most CotBG (Mekhanite) sects, has an interest in using cybernetics for the sake of resurrection. For reasons described below, they have a reluctant alliance with the Esoteric Order of the White Worm, and also several other groups Neo-Sarkic (see below) groups oppose, including but not limited to the Foundation. They also think the Horizon Initiative (an in-universe Abrahamic knockoff of the Foundation) is a front for Neo-Sarkic and Church of the Scarlet King (what Hollywood calls “satanists”, also what “Christian fundamentalism” is a front for in-universe) activity for religion-related reasons.

Order of the Dragon: The real life knightly order Vlad the Impaler was a member of, here a Neo-Sarkic (basically an extremely fucked-up body horror version of Christianity) order of Romanian fascist knights who, like any Sarkic croup, are diametrically opposed to Mekhanites, and in the Order’s case, that especially goes for the BotFN. The Order also really want to wipe out the Esoteric Order of the White Worm, a Hungarian-based GoI mixing elements of Proto-Sarkicism (what Neo-Sarkicism is a blasphemous heresy/inversion of, still body horror related but closer to Gnosticism) and Hungarian polytheism mentioned in a few articles. After Vlad got killed, actually by Foundation and Horizon Initiative members (see below), the OotD have been mostly inactive due to their self-imposed dependence on Vlad.

Forbidden: The real life Hashishim, here anomaly-using and still around. This cult of mercenaries and hitmen is largely shrouded in mystery, but they currently operate a bit like a mafia and have been involved with the Chicago Spirit (a group of anomaly-using gangsters) and Valravn (an anomalous mercenary group).

Thorncutters: A terrorist GoI that has literally waged war against certain Latinic letters (see below) and want to eliminate all evidence that said letters were ever used. They consider those who speak Icelandic to be their worst enemy to the point of wanting to round them all up in death camps. They also want to force c-with-cedilla to be fully replaced with c-with-comma, and the same for all cedillas, and hate the use of extra bars as a feature of some letters.

Eðheads: A group of scathing satirists and counter-terrorists consisting of those immune to the anomaly indirectly responsible for the Thorncutters, their greatest enemy. They also want to partially reinstate yogh (see below), among other orthographic changes in many languages, but they don’t do it through violence. They broke off from Gamers Against Weed (a group of anomaly-using internet trolls) because, in their own words, GAW can't take anything seriously, and also, GAW also can’t take the Eðheads sriously, and neither can a lot of GoIs. (The eðheads are on the eth side of which letter got replaced with “th” in English, a call-back to another SCP involving the namesake of the Thorncutters supposedly not having ever been in English, and it’s comparable to the thing down in Samothrace, another SCP)

Characters: These may be related to the above but don't have to even be involved with any GoI

Literally Me - Object Class: Literally Neutralized (formerly Literally Apollyon) - Literally a dumb teenage girl who literally thought “literally” literally meant “figuratively”, and also literally a type green. Any time she literally misused “literally”, that literally became reality. She was literally going to end the world, but she literally killed herself with the text “OMG, like, I literally just died laughing, lol”, which literally retroactively caused her to die laughing literally just seconds before. The excess uses of “literally” in the article are literally a residual anomaly that literally makes the article itself the new SCP of the same designation.

Nice - Object Class: Keter - An ultimately uncontainable narrative entity that inserts critical and/or humorous footnotes in whatever document it inhabits and said footnotes cannot be deleted while it’s in said document. It’s heavily critical of the Foundation and was made specifically to mess with them by Gamers Against Weed (a group of anomaly-using internet trolls and satirists), but even GAW finds it annoying due to its scathing yet genuine critique of anyone and anything it comes across. The title itself is based on the ‘LOL, 69’ trope, which it frequently utilizes. (The SCP number would be XX69)

Ankou - Object Class: Archon - A series of robots that greatly resemble human skeletons, and they were created by the Brotherhood of the Fallen Knights to guard various anomalous artifacts at cemeteries, mostly in Brittany. They do a better job at containment for several anomalies than the Foundation and some have even begun to see the Foundation as allies. They also wield high-tech scythes.

Shinigami - Object Class: Keter - A biomechanical pair of entities, a naginata-wielding armored samurai-like figure (-1) and a semi-skeletal equine steed with jet wings (-2), who are both members of the Forbidden (see above), ex-members of a Mekhanite sect, and have personally taken out various warlords and some known GoI and even Foundation members. The pair have inspired the Goetic description of Abigor / Eligos and to a lesser extent the modern image of the grim reaper.

🎵Nobody wants to see your butt🎵 - Object Class: Euclid - A man who considers his butt to be extremely breathtaking and wants to moon people with their consent for that reason. NOTHING, not even death, can stop him, and somebody will eventually get mooned by him. He also frequently sings a song he made up, “Everybody wants to see my butt”, in the tune of “Everybody wants to be a cat” from The Aristocats.

Eating Children for God - Object Class: Keter - A group of highly durable predatory cyborgs made into such against their will by a Mekhanite sect based on a parable with cyborg wolves eating Sarkic sheep, and said parable was interpreted as promoting eating “heathen” children alive by the ones responsible. Said cyborgs are known by inconsistent names (Mormo, Lamia, Empousa, Gello, Onoskelis, Abyzou) due to there being more than one and how spread out they were throughout ancient Greece. (Based on Greek mythology)

Son of the Dragon - Object Class: Neutralized (formerly Keter) - Literally Vlad the Impaler, not a vampire here but instead something far more dangerous, a karcist, and the former leader of the Order of the Dragon. He was murderously Romanian-supremacist and fetishizes impaling the innocent in extremely fucked up ways. Notably, when the Foundation and Horizon Initiative teamed up to stop distribution of some anomalous bibles (see below), a Horizon Initiative member revealed himself to be a Neo-Sarkcist fascist and tried to murder the others, starting with a black man, but the Brotherhood of the Fallen Knights intervened, giving the others enough time to neutralize Vlad by impaling HIM. The Order of the Dragon have been trying to resurrect him since.

Species: These don’t have to be biological as we know it

Kappa - Object Class: Explained - A species of semi-humanoid semi-aquatic sapient amphibians with turtle-like soft shells and some unusual biological features. For example, there is a “bowl” on the cranium where the branching gills are, this can’t be left empty for long or the kappa will have trouble breathing. Kappas also have 2 orifices near their anuses which they use to blast through the water, as they’re not very good swimmers despite being aquatic, allowing them to migrate and be away from a river or lake. Also, during the cold months, a layer of tissue will grow over their gill-bowl (They’re alluded to in some other SCPs, especially one which causes kappas to often get teleported to Mongolia for Harry Potter related reasons [I’m not making this up])

Arseball - Object Class: Euclid - The “shirikodama”, a nonexistent organ from Japanese folklore, here actually a parasitic invertebrate that inhabits mammal abdominal cavities. Other than it being antimemetic, its only actual anomaly is that it attracts kappas, which would remove the parasite from its usually human or horse host violently by ripping it out through the anus of the host. (The idea here is that, despite these creatures being naturally occurring, folklore is literally to blame for these things being anomalous at all, as Japan itself is anomalous in a folklore-related manner in the Foundationverse)

Korrigans - Object Class: Explained - A species of roughly dog-sized sapient mammals (either rodents, insectivora, or mustelids) from Breton folklore and known for their ferocious French taunting, and a possible source for Gloatre (see below). They also have ties to the Aquitanians, an ancient civilization of the menhir-making type that’s a cultural predecessor of both Bretons and “Basques”. (The latter is a call-back to the legendary city of Ys, an SCP here)

Rasknovik - Object Class: Ticonderoga - A species of clover with both antimemetic and metaphysical properties, and some animals are somehow immune to its effects. (It was alluded to in another SCP article)

Mapinguari - Object Class: Keter - A predatory bipedal species native to the Amazon Rainforest, which vaguely resembles a cyclops. They have an antimemetic property that prevents one from noticing the sounds it makes until they see it or otherwise know for a fact it’s there, and they’re also very hard to kill. (From Guarani folklore)

Rainbow Rhinos - Object Class: Explained - A species of Congolese rhinoceros that most paleontologists believe extinct, and it non-anomalously has a reflective property on its hide that has a shiny rainbow effect. It’s what is actually called the moleke-mbembe (a term meaning, among other things, “rainbow” or “rhinoceros”, despite what creationist propagandists falsely claimed for the sake of propaganda). (There is another SCP that’s an anomalous Congolese equivalent to Jurassic Park, but that has since been established to not entirely be accurate, even if the animals are usually more accurate than popular depictions of corresponding prehistoric animals)

Grootslang - Object Class: Keter - A southern African species of sapient omnivorous extant dinosaur (unrelated to that Congolese dinosaur area) that does not correspond to known fossil records, even to that which the Foundation has access to. It has features like the frill of a ceratopsian, the limbs of a theropod, a long serpentine tail, and an oddly baboon-like face with a trunk, a presumed evolution of a sauropod head. What makes them considered so dangerous is how territorial they are, and they will avoid eating humans unless out of starvation. While not anomalous in and of itself, pretty much everyone has no idea where these things came from, although the idea that they came from another universe is presented. (Based on southern African folklore)

Dwarves: A species of child-sized humanoids from another universe who are highly technologically advanced compared to humans, and the Foundation frequently deals with Dwarven technology.

Items: This does not include physical media unless the medium itself is anomalous instead of the information

“Uh-uh-uh-uh, I’m a song from the sixties” - Object Class, Euclid - The hats mentioned above, these are yellow bowler hats that anomalously stay on the wearer’s head until taken off deliberately. They also grant the user the ability to both speak and understand Homsarese, and the The Homsar Reservation uses them in part to keep others from gaining information without wearing one. The title is a frequent quote from said language from Homsar from the show.

Out of Place Anomalies - Object Class: Explained - A series of various ancient artifacts in places that they seemingly should not be at, such as Egyptian artifacts in Australia. The title is a reference to OOPART, a shortening of ‘out of place artifact’. This isn't even an actual anomaly, but instead evidence that the Foundation has been deliberately obscuring some big historical details solely to keep the status quo.

Agrippa - Object Class: Thaumiel - A comically large book that is also a living organism, specifically a Sarkic bioform. It exists to record knowledge its masters gain, especially spells, and a Foundation researcher has become the master of it when he found it in an ankou-guarded crypt. The trouble is, it acts as a parasite, meaning that the Foundation has to assign a new master every few years.

“Uh-uh-uh-uh, I’m a trendy totebag” - Object Class: Safe - A totebag which viewers will consider to be trending, which inevitably results in the totebag’s design becoming trending, and then it changes form, starting the cycle over again. It was created by a The Homsar Reservation bember in a bet with a Gamers Against Weed member.

“Uh-uh-uh-uh, I’m not gonna lie to ya, that’s a fine piece of real estate” - Object Class: Keter - A recurring and possibly contagious piece of graffiti in the form of a blue block Arial font “g” which makes the large enough object it’s on considered to be a fine piece of real estate. It was created by the The Homsar Reservation for pranks.

Clown Water - Object Class: Euclid - Water filled with algae that’s non-toxic, but still as disgusting as usual except to both anomalous and regular clowns, and is used by anomalous clowns frequently. The anomaly is in the algae itself, a species that’s symbiotic with some clown species. (Based on an in-joke)

OMG I can hear rapin’ paper - Object Class: Safe - A brand of glitter labelled “Rapin’ Sparklez” that, if used to decorate a piece of paper, said paper will come to life and origami itself into an animal shape to hump things. (Your Grammar Sucks reference)

Media: Includes typical media or mind-affecting things

...and the word becomes FLESH - Object Class: Euclid - A series of Christian bibles made with human skin and blook ink that carry Neo-Sarkicism-related cognitohazards. They were created to convert Christians to Neo-Sarkicism by the Order of the Dragon and were intended by Vlad the Impaler to replace regular bibles at every church, but Vlad got sealed away before that could happen.

Object Cognitohazard - Object Class: Keter - A recurring series of cognitohazards that affect certain object show (think Battle for Dream Island or Inanimate Insanity) episodes. Affected episodes are the reason BFDIA, Inanimate Insanity II, and all second object show seasons before Extraordinarily Excellent Entities were never finished here. The cognitohazard itself acts like a disease with the following progression of symptoms: the affected starts believing that they’re an animate inanimate object of the same manner as an object show (the exact details depend on a mixture of the show, the affected episode in particular, and one’s mannerisms in general), they start attempting the kind of things said object type should be able to do (often with horribly lethal results), and they then turn into the kind of object they believe themself to be if both having survived and left untreated. One researcher deliberately exposed themself to BFDIA 5f (the affected BFDI episode) for science, and they managed to survive as they have prepared for the symptoms, and they became an amnestic spray can. All -1 instances, those transformed, are immune to any further effects and can thus watch the affected episodes safely.

“Twas the pride of the peaches” - Object Class: Safe - An anomalous parody of The Night Before Christmas with the same rhythm but it’s all in Homsarese and means something different and makes just as much sense in context. It has somewhat similar properties to the Homsar hats but much more specific, and it also has an antimemetic property that convinces the reader and the audience that there’s noting unusual provided they’re unaware of the poem itself.

Help me clean up THE WORLD - Object Class: Neutralized (formerly Keter) - An internet-based memetic anomaly that spread through messages with contagiously bad English that gets worse and worse, created by Giftschreiber (a terrorist GoI that uses word-based anomalies) to destroy the English language in a hilarious manner. Luckily, Your Grammar Sucks, a show on the YouTube channel JacksFilms, was the cure, so the Foundation utilized that to neutralize the anomaly before English as a whole became worthy of the response “a what a fucke”. Gamers Against Weed only helped make that worse out of a mix of amusement and unsuccessfully trying to weaponize it against far-righters.

Dangerous LOLcats - Object Class: Keter - An online video consisting of laugh tracks superimposed over footage of cats doing silly things, which will cause any viewer who does not already find the actions funny to find them and related actions extremely funny when done by any given cat. The funnier the action, like for example, a cat chasing a laser point, the more likely the affected will literally die laughing.

"Uh-uh-uh-uh, let’s start the Johnsons” - Object Class: Euclid - The Big Fat (formerly known as The Fruit that It Bears and later as The Shape of Water), an eccentric rock group consisting of a The Homsar Reservation member, bember, bemb, and memb respectively (the implied ranking is just for laughs and doesn’t really mean anything). Their lyrics are of the surreal humor variety and the music itself is cognitohazardous and results in the listener having synesthesia, hallucinating dancing stickmen, and having a desire to do logically impossible things such as “chickening butts” or “stealing others in the face”. It’s popular in the anomalous world, and Gamers Against Weed members occasionally distribute legally purchased copies freely outside of it just to mess with the Foundation. Albums under the present name currently include “The The Johnsons” and “When Will the Dancing Man?”, and various songs include titles like “Twin Size Bed Dimensions” (as The Fruit that It Bears), “Republic Services” (as The Shape of Water), “Nobody Wants to See Your Butt”, all of which are covers with altered titles and lyrics. (Basically a SorrowTV YT channel reference)

The Godless Delusion - Object Class: Apollyon - A religious text created by SAPHIR/SAPPHIRE (an occult terrorist group that not only pretends to be irreligious but pretends anomalous things aren’t real in an unusual variation of taqiyyah [not even remotely exclusive to Islam, by the way, both in-universe and irl]), which they pretend is merely a fascist political manifesto. This work is highly cognitohazardous and memetic and will result in the reader being assaulted with psychic visions relating to the “Cosmic Starfish“ (see above) and past iterations of the Fifthist Church. (I’m thinking of the idea of SAPHIR here being the next iteration of the Fifthist Church, and also the ones somehow responsible for SCP-6500, which would have eventually directly resulted in the slow and painful end of the world in the universe it occurred in, given that this is the Foundationverse)

Concepts: These are more abstract than the others

Pattern Screamer Chess - Object Class: Euclid - A series of related and highly complex chess variants that use pieces that don’t exist (SCP-XXXX-1) in addition to those that do in the gameplay. This being the Foundationverse, the rules end up getting pattern screamers (a form of dangerous abstract entity) involved, and the events make it harder and harder to continue playing and have been known to result in the death of one or both players.

Lashes of Fire - Object class: Keter - An anomalous form of ritual murder that involves a sacrificial victim getting lashed with a special whip with small heated metal plates along its length, and said wounds being copied onto a chosen target. It originated with the Order of the Brazen Heart (an occult terrorist group originating in ancient Israel and a known enemy of the Foundation), and while the Foundation though they disbanded the OotBH, the head researcher of the SCP became a victim, proving them wrong. It was based on an extremely cruel Roman punishment inflicted upon Israelites, including Yeshua before he was crucified, and the SCP itself is the in-universe in-name-only basis for “Pulsa DiNura”, a supposed assassination ritual some hate groups claim to use when the death of someone they hate occurs (irl, in fact).

Gloatre: A language that in real life is a conlang created by Vordb, a French black metal and dark ambient musician. Here, however, the language carries an antimeme that prevents people from being able to figure out how it originated and gets more intense with each repeated attempt, which convinced Vordb that he made it up. Vordb did come up with the presently used Latinic orthography, though. While Vordb is considered a Person of Interest (PoI) to the Foundation, his real name is redacted in the article out of respect for his privacy.

The Greatest Story Never Told - Object Class: Ticonderoga - A potent history-based antimeme surrounding Yeshua, aka “””Jesus”””, which is ultimately responsible for all extant Abrahamic religions. Even the ancient Romans were affected, which led to them mostly trying to pretend he never existed at first.

Hello Kitty - Object Class: Explained - The behavior of parroting in cats, which is far less effective than from certain types of bird but still adorable. The Foundation found about it relatively recently and at first assumed that it was a cognitohazard exclusive to cats and ranked it Keter, leading to a lot of wasted time and money, which a certain footnote troll (see above) will constantly remind the Foundation.

The War Against Old Letters - Object Class: Cernunnos - A hostile memetic idea that’s the in-universe reason why such letters as Þ/þ (thorn), Ð/ð (eth), Ȝ/ȝ (ghogh), Ƿ/ƿ (wynn), and pre-modern uses of Ɔ/ɔ are generally avoided in almost all cases in the modern world, with the notable exception of the latter 2 being used in Icelandic. Said idea is that said letters are “old-fashioned”, “stupid”, “pointless”, etc., and it frequently results in violence from the affected, including child abuse, a few murders, and even acts of terrorism, especially from the Thorncutters (see above). Studies even show that the afflicted have an intense desire to destroy any occurrences of the letters the anomaly, here created by British occultists for imperialist reasons, targets. What’s even worse is that several Foundation members are affected.

Locations: These don’t have to be anomalous, just relevant

Enochian Empire: An ancient British Isles based empire associated with Alagadda, and the source of the inhuman language High Enochian, the one the Enochian language created by John Dee and Edward Kelly was inspired by, which is something the Horizon Initiative really doesn’t want to admit. The Enochians created it as they wanted to get away from Alagaddan royalty, and they have inspired various British Isles legends, being misinterpreted as anything from giants to fae to demons. They were wiped out by elves looking to get away from Alfheim for equivalent reasons, who were in turn banished by proto-Celts to some anomalous locations, like Elven!Hy-Brasil (that place got trashed by a Fifthist “archon” in the 80′s).

Elven Colonies: Hy-Brasil was the largest of these, but there are still others, and given the refugees, their inhabitants tend to blame humans for the “archon” fucking Hy-Brasil up despite that being the work of the Fifthist Church (the present iteration of a highly hostile SCP based around “The Cosmic Starfish”, aka Aten, Tonatiuh, the Supreme Being, etc.) at most. All of these are spatial anomalies, and some elves are looking to take over the other Hy-Brasil (another SCP, an anomalous island inhabited by a non-anomalous and distinct Celtic group, and the apparent source of the Voice Taker, a different SCP that’s basically a bogeyman-like thoughtform).

House of pumpkin or pumpkin of house? - Object Class: Safe - A house-sized pumpkin carved into a house and inhabited by a friendly human-sized pumpkin with a face. Is his house made of flesh or is he made of house? He screams, for he does not know, and the Foundation screams for the same reason.

Ancient Slavic Cities “of the Gods”: Various Proto-Slavic cities, such as Radogost and Bujan, that appear in Slavic mythology, one of many such civilizations with anachronistic technology and having some connection with Mekhanites and rivalry with Proto-Sarkic groups. Some are extant but are no longer inhabited by humans, but instead something horrifying.

Butter for Everyone - Object Class: Euclid - Puddle Town, a town inhabited by butter fanatics, but at least with free butter. The trouble is that said butter is churned from the milk of, something, and said butter is complacency-inducing, allowing the heavier citizens to be fed to the milk-producing creature. (Based on an in-joke)

Everybody’s Nose - Object Class: Safe - Nosemary, an idyllic small town whose human inhabitants (-1) are required to give up their noses at an early age to a giant disembodied nose (-2) living in a special building, so that -2 can not only absorb the -1’s nose but become biologically connected to them in a non-Euclidean manner. This allows -1 to breathe and to take on the nasal symptoms for the -1s, but at the price of dependence and a blank area where the nose was. -1s make nose puns in everyday speech and repeat such things as “the nose knows”. However, the place is almost crime-free and people trust each other enough that there is little conflict, -1′s still somehow have a sense of smell.

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

The Enochian Language, a Medieval European “angelic” (read, fae) constructed language created by two very successful con artists, is mostly based on glossolalia with some snippets of English, Romanian, and Ecclesiastic Latin (the latter implying that its “U” and “I” are like they are in Ecclesiastic and Archaic Latin, so like in Romanian), which makes no sense given its supposed prehistoric origin. To summarize, here, in given order, are the letters, the script of which is right-to-left like in abjads and some variants of Runic scripts:

B/b

C/c: Like in English (makes no sense in context of its supposed origin)

G/g: Roughly the voiced equivalent of C above (ditto)

D/d

F/f

A/a: Like an “ah”, as in the Elizabethan English (among other languages) A/a, not quite like the modern version

E/e: Like an “eh”, as in the Elizabethan (among other languages) E/e, not quite  like the modern version

M/m

I/i: Like the Romanian I/i, so it can be a vowel or a consonant (like in Iad, meaning “devil” and identical to the Romanian word for “hell”, for the latter while also equivalent to its linguistic origin, “Hades”)

Y/y or J/j: Syllable-final semivowel equivalent of I/i, differentiated from I/i with a dot

H/h: Like in Elizabethan English, the exact use varies but it sounds like “h” by itself initially

L/l

P/p

Q/q: Like “qu-” in English

N/n

X/x: Like in English

O/o: Like in Elizabethan English, not quite like the modern version

R/r

Z/z

U/u or V/v: Like in Archaic Latin, so like U/u in Romanian and Ecclesiastic Latin, u-equivalent to I/i above

S/s

T/t

Everything not given further details sounds like one would expect, and some English-derived consonant-digraphs are present, such as ‘ph’ (sounds identical to F/f), ‘th’, ‘sh’, and ‘ch’ (the sound varies, but it often sounds identical to the hard sound of C/c, presumably especially before E/e and I/i)

“True Enochian” could be applied to either a sci-fi or fantasy setting, and with what I know about ancient languages and some ancient non-semanto-phonetic scripts, I have some ideas, which will be listed below in a Semitic-derived order in the form of an abjad:

“E” - [null] or `/’: The null consonant, occurs either initially where a word begins with a vowel or to indicate a lengthened A/a or E/e, may indicate a glottal stop instead medially

“B“ - B/b or V/v: Voiced bilabial, hard in general but can be soft in some interpretations

“G“ - G/g or Ȝ/ȝ: Voiced velar, equivalent as such to the “B“ base but the soft version may have a “(d)zh“ sound instead

“D“ - D/d or Ð/ð: Voiced dental, ditto

“A“ - H/h or `/’: Glottal, H/h if soft or `/’ if hard, may also come after some vowels to indicate increased length of E/e in the manner of [null]

“U“ - V/v or W/w: Voiced labial, can be either the consonant equivalent to U/u or like the soft interpretation of “B“, sed to indicate a lengthened U/u or O/o

“Z“ - Z/z: Either like what one would expect it to sound or like some sort of ‘tz‘ sound

“H“ - H/h, Ħ/ħ, or X/x: Like some sort of h-sound, the exact interpretation may vary

“I/Y/J“ - J/j: Consonant equivalent to I/i, may be ised to indicate a lengthened I/i or E/e

“C“ - K/k or X/x: Voiceless velar, voiceless equivalent to “G” above 

“L” - L/l: Pretty much as expected

“M“ - M/m: Ditto

“N“ - N/n: Ditto

“X“ - S/s: Like “ss“, possibly voiced in some cases

“O“ - `/’, Q/q, or Ɛ/ɛ: Like a glottal or pharyngeal stop, possibly could indicate a lengthened E/e or O/o

“P“ - P/p or F/f: Voiceless bilabial

“Q“ - Q/q: Could be either like a throaty hard velar sound or a pharyngeal stop

“R“ - R/r: Could be either rolled or not

“S“ - Ş/ş: Like what one would expect “sh“ to sound, could be voiced in some cases

“T“ - T/t or Þ/þ: Voiceless dental

The only one of the original 22 not accounted here is the one just before J/j. Also, this is only taking Canaanite/Hebrew languages into consideration as equivalents. Either way, consonant differentiation could be indicated by some sort of diacritic, as would each vowel and possibly a lack thereof.

For the null base, the idea is that certain other bases would just be that one with diacritics, such as J (palatalization, as in -j), S (-s or s-), Ş (ş- or -ş) V/W (labialization, as in -v/w), the pseudo-A (aspiration, glottalization, doubling, or hardening), the pseudo-O (pharyngealization, glottalization, or doubling), R (retroflex), or N (nasal). That would make sense if one considers that the Dee/Kelly font does not have to be the original and would be highly unlikely to be anything but a fancy version. This could make the null consonant the one many others are built upon, and of course the palatalization diacritic would be the easiest to get from that font given the similarity to the presented versions of the bases.

If I was to apply that to the Verden Chronicles, it would represent a Verden-born human language without close Terran languages but instead based on preexisting extraterrestrial ones, and I could expand that into a language family at least in the lore. Also, there would be an Enochian civilization that uses/used said language and similar ones.

The SCP Foundation website mentions “High Enochian”, evidently supposed to be the original that John Dee and Edward Kelly screwed up for their own gain. In-universe, Dee was one of the Order of the Night (a real life organization given an SCP spin here), a group of alchemists who found a way to contact Alagadda, an inter-universal city-state ruled by malevolent gods but not inherently hostile itself. The implication here is that Hich Enochian is one of if not the only official language of Alagadda, despite what the Horizon Initiative (an in-universe Abrahamic-themed Foundation knockoff) seems to think judging by another anomaly (it makes sense in context, but it’s a sapient, talking whale made into a ship/theater through unholy, possibly Sarkic, magick, not that it seems to mind).

From a Foundationverse perspective, High Enochian, as a language native to a place that makes little to no sense given the physical laws of baseline reality at least from a spatial, gravitational, and perceptional point of view, would actually be not only stranger but literally unpronounceable to baseline humans to at least some extent. If unrelated to Alagadda in origin, it would instead be the language of a prehistoric Enochian civilization only vaguely alluded to in other articles (the closest thing to a consistent canon given they represent events set in different parts of the multiverse), and it would be pronounceable but likely following a different logic from what I described in detail. I prefer the Alagadda idea myself, partly because I like the idea of the Horizon Initiative to be too willfully ignorant to accept that the language itself is not even remotely what they think it is, and that would be played for nightmare fuel somehow, like a linguist ending up being only capable of sounds no creature on Earth should be able to make as a result of trying to sound it out over an extended period of time and eventually coughing up blood. Maybe it could be both at once, as in High Enochian being of Alagaddan origin but being derived from an earlier human language, but that would be unlikely.

Coincidentally, there is an “Enochian” species (apparent angel-equivalents of the evil god Dagon) in Ben 10: Alien Force, and that setting’s equivalent “True Enochian” would most likely be their language if not some other nonhuman language. The trouble is that said setting does next to nothing to expand on the concept, but that is most likely to avoid overdoing it on the worldbuilding, not that it’s perfect or anything, of course.

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Korean and Korean-adjacent transliteration on Verden

Verden Korean uses Hangưl as well, but it still uses some letters that have no modern Terran equivalents.

Consonants: The horizontal double-letters are here treated either as their own letters or as digraphs in certain alphabets, and the order is based on both historical and modern orders. Only some of these are used in base Korean.

ㄱ = G/ᵹ: Base hard velar, usually voiceless but medially voiced in many languages

ㄲ = Ɡ/ɡ: Usually medial voiceless/breathless hard velar 

ㅋ = K/k: Breathy voiceless hard velar

ᄂ = N/n: Like its Chinese equivalent

ᄔ = Ꞥ/ꞥ: Like its Chinese equivalent

ᄃ = Đ/đ: Dental equivalent to G/ᵹ

ㄸ = D/d: Dental equivalent to Ɡ/ɡ

ㅌ = T/t: Dental equivalent to K/k

ㄹ = L/l: Generally like an r-ish l-sound

ᄙ = Ł/ł: Generally like either a pharyngeal or r-ish L/l or a voiced H/h equivalent that can be either soft or hard

ᄆ = M/m

ᄇ = Ƀ/ƀ: Bilabial equivalent to G/ᵹ

ㅃ = B/b: Bilabial equivalent to Ɡ/ɡ

ㅍ = P/p: Bialbial equivalent to K/k

ᅎ = Ꟈ/ꟈ: Phonetically ‘đs/z’

ᅏ = Ꞇ/ꞇ: Phonetically ‘ds‘

ᅔ = C/c: Phonetically ‘ts‘

ㅈ = Z/z or Ƶ/ƶ: Phonetically ‘đs’ or roughly ‘đx’

ㅉ = C/c or Ȼ/ȼ: Phonetically ‘ds or’ roughly ‘dx‘

ㅊ = Ç/ç: Phonetically ‘ts’ or roughly ‘tx’

ᅐ = Ḑ/ḑ: Phonetically roughly ‘đj’

ᅑ = Ꟑ/ꟑ: Phonetically roughly ‘dj‘

ᅕ = Ţ/ţ: Phonetically roughly ‘tj‘

ᄼ = Þ/þ: Soft dental, usually voiceless

ᄽ = Ꝺ/ꝺ: Usually voiced soft dental

ㅅ = S/s: Generally what one would expect it to sound, but becomes an ‘sh‘ equivalent in front of certain vowels

ᄊ = ẞ/ß: Either what one expects S/s to sound or like Þ/þ

ᄴ = Z̨/z̨: Voiced equivalent to ẞ/ß

ᄾ = Ş/ş: The inverse of ẞ/ß

ᄿ = Z̧/z̧: The inverse of Z̨/z̨

ㅿ = Z/z: Voiced equivalent to S/s

ㆁ = Ŋ/ŋ: Usually an ‘ng‘ sound, not to be confused with ㅇ (these letters merged on Terra due to convenience), the only one here not in Terran use but in Verden use for base Korean

ᇮ = Q/q: Generally some sort of pharyngeal velar, usually voiceless

ㅇ = [Nothing] or `/’: The null or medial glottal stop consonant, each initial vowel is attached to this

ᅇ = Ꜫ/ꜫ: Pharyngeal stop or breathy hard pharyngeal velar

ㆆ = `/’ or H/h : Non-medial glottal stop or soft h-sound

ꥼ = J/ȷ: Usually a voiced soft or hard h-sound, but sometimes the consonant equivalent to I/ı and often Y/y

ㅎ = H/h or X/x: Can be either soft or hard

ㆅ = X/x: Like H/h but hard and usually voiceless

ㅸ = V/v: Usually a soft voiced bilabial, but sometimes the consonant equivalent to U/u and often Ư/ư

ㅹ = W/w: Usually a toothless soft bilabial, but sometimes is the consonant equivalent to O/o and often Ơ/ơ

ㆄ = F/f: Soft bilabial, usually voiceless

ㅱ = M̧/m̧: Like either an r-ish or voiceless equivalent to M/m

ᄛ = R/r: Like its Chinese equivalent

Vowels: These include j- and w- sounding vowels, like the Terran use, but more vowels in general, and are listed here by order of - / J/ȷ- / V/v- (The Latinic transliterations of the latter 2 are a macron and a breve respectively). Not all of these are used in base Korean, and of these listed, the only extra used are ȷư and ȷө, and Y/y initially sounds identical to Vy in base Korean.

ㅏ/ㅑ/ㅘ = A/a: Like its Chinese equivalent

ㅣ/ퟄ/ㅢ = I/ı: Like its Chinese equivalent, but ȷı is used as the semivowel form if used

ㅡ/ᆖ/ᆕ = Ư/ư: Like its Chinese equivalent, but vư is often used as the semivowel form if used

ㅜ/ㅠ/ᆍ = U/u: Like its Chinese equivalent, but vu is often used as the semivowel form if used

ㅟ/ᆔ/ᆓ = Y/y: Like its Chinese equivalent, but whichever would functionally be doubling would be the semivowel form if used

ㅔ/ㅖ/ㅞ = E/e: ‘Eh‘ sound

ㅐ/ㅒ/ㅙ = Ę/ę: Phonetically ‘æ‘ (another possible transliteration of its Terran equivalent)

ㅓ/ㅕ/ㅝ = Ơ/ơ: Like its Chinese equivalent

ㅗ/ㅛ/ힼ = O/o: Like its Chinese equivalent

ㅚ/ᆈ/ᆗ = Ө/ө: Like its Chinese equivalent

ㆍ/ᆢ/ᆠ = Ą/ą: Like its Chinese equivalent and/or similar to but not quite Ơ/ơ

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Life on Verden

Verden is a Telluric (Terra-like) planet, meaning that it has environments and life roughly similar to that of Terra. It’s not even remotely the only one, but it is one of the most well known in the Sea of Stars (Milky Way). This is largely because of it having the unique characteristic of no extant and naturally indigenous sapient species, with all resident sapients’s species being extraterrestrial. This includes humans, who were introduced because of some of the previously resident civilizations relying on slave labor and test subjects in a similar manner to Africans having been introduced to the Americas. The practice has totally stopped in the 1700′s AD/CE, but it was already thousands of years old and already heavily controversial before the 1700′s.

Verden itself is slightly smaller than Terra yet has a more oxygenated atmosphere, allowing for larger organisms with insectoid respiratory systems, or otherwise, to survive. It has many dangerous native organisms, including megafauna, especially in the oceans. It has three continents, Nordheim (the northernmost continent, hence the name), Asura (a large continent roughly the scale of Asia), and Deva (several different mainlands, the largest of which is roughly the size of South America). Its biodiversity is another reason it’s well known among the Sea of Stars. Verden has relatively smaller polar ice caps than Terra, but Nordheim is still generally cold, as is the outer part of the Southern Eye, the ocean around the south pole. It also has deserts with somewhat more biodiversity than Terran ones, most of which are in the tropical regions, and the reptilian sapients are usually found there.

Humans: The resident sapient primates and a relatively recent addition, known for their unique cultures and languages and often discriminated against in at least some form depending on the region. They are adapted to the differences in Verden’s atmosphere and though genetic experiments of the past, often have unusual physical characteristics, such as unusual hair color

Magonians: A series of closely related insectoid species of varying sizes, many species of which roughly resemble certain types of Terran insects, native to Magonia and ultimately the inspiration for the cliche modern Terran image of fae/fairies

Elves: A species of roughly cat-like semi-humanoid marsupials, known for their beauty and intelligence, native to Alfheim

Dwarves: A species of boneless and hairless semi-humanoid native to Alfheim, surprisingly strong and also having a reputation of being highly intelligent and hard-working

Dragons: There are a few resident sapient dragon species, including a semihumanoid one, a flying one, and a semiaquatic one

Dinosaurs: There are several sapient dinosaur species residing on Verden, mostly goblin (sapient dromaeosaurid) species

Aquatics: A set of distinct aquatic sapient species, including a cephalopod-like one and a few piscine-ish non-humanoid ones along with merfolk, an extraterrestrial semihumanoid aquatic species with reptilian characteristics

Verden’s human population, and to a lesser extent the other populations, have a subset of mutants collectively known as immundanes, which for humans include but are not limited to vampires, therianthropes (aka skinwalkers), and for any given immundane population, specifc lineages with unusual and often beneficial physical characteristics in general. Vampires and therianthropes here are best described as an imperfect attempt at supersoldiers, with vampires relying on nutrients usually found in mammal blood to survive (and also not any more photosensitive than mundanes, or non-immundanes) being the reason for “failure” and therianthropes, sheer physical abilities being too much for the aliens responsible for their existence.

Vampires in particular are very often found holding positions of power, high social standing, and/or are wealthy, and unlike on Terra, this is very often due to vampires having much longer lifespans than mundanes and actually working on up. For Judaism-related reasons, they and Judaists tend to not get along well, but Jewish vampires are not unheard of.

Therianthropes are often associated with warrior cultures, such as Nordic and Mesoamerican ones, but not always in a good way. The most common variants on Verden are werejaguars, werewolves, and berserkers (werebears). Berserkers in particular have a relatively bad reputation due to how they’re described in Nordic sagas, which is ironic considering that how they’re described is not necessarily portrayed as a bad thing in said sagas.

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Verden transliterations of Chinese Languages, such as Guanhùà

Guanhùà is the most widely spoken Chinese-originated language on Verden (as Guanhva’, utilizing specific letters to indicate tones and not always using vowels as semiconsonants) like it is on Terra, but to a somewhat lesser extent. Bopomofo basically originated too late to be feasibly used, and the semanto-phonetic script has an alphabet with several scripts with 1:1 correspondence, namely Mongolian (here called Kitaian), Cyrillic, Arabic (there is a Terran one, but it’s modified to fit the Mongolian script here), and ‘Pagsba (a Medieval alphabetic script meant to write Mongolian, Chinese, and Tibetan languages with, here modified a bit). The alphabet, not including only Guanhva’ letters but several others as well, is described here is based on Tibetan order and going by the order of Arabic, Mongolian, and Cyrillic (Mongolian and ‘Pagsba do not have equivalents to all of these letters like the extended Verden versions do).

Consonants: In Verden Guanhva’, for example, medial consonants are voiced where they would normally be voiceless and non-aspirated while normally aspirated consonants would not be so, a characteristic derived phonetically from Japanese.

ࢼ = К/к = K/k

ک = Ґ/ґ = G/ᵹ

ݢ = Ғ/ғ = Ɡ/g: Depending on the language, this can be like G/g but voiced or to Q/q as G/g is to K/k

ق = Ҡ/ҡ = Q/q: Sounds like either K/k or G/g but pharyngeal, or in a few cases like K/k sounds in Guanva’

گ = Г/г = Ŋ/ŋ: Depending on the language, this can sound like either ‘ng’ or like G/g but voiced

چ = Ћ/ћ = Ţ/ţ: Sounds like either Ć/ć, ki-, or something like ‘tl’

ج = Ҕ/ҕ = Ḑ/ḑ: Sounds like either Ź/ź, gi-, or something like ‘dl’

ںٛ = Ԋ/ԋ = Ņ/ņ: Sounds like either ni- or a voiced or nasal equivalent to Ź/ź (the actual Latinic letter is an actual n-with-cedilla, not n-with-comma)

ٿ = Ч/ч = Ç/ç: Sounds like Č/č

ط = Ж/ж or Џ/џ = Ƶ/ƶ: Sounds like Ž/ž

ن = Ҥ/ҥ or Ж/ж = Ꞥ/ꞥ: Sounds like either a voiced or nasal equivalent to Ƶ/ƶ or an r-ish N/n, or more rarely N/n as a consonant where -N/n indicates vowel nasalization

ت = Т/т = T/t: The Cyrillic form is usually written as resembling an inverted Ш

د = Д/д = D/d

ض = Ꙣ/ꙣ = Đ/đ: Like D/d but either voiced or nasal

ࢽ = Н/н = N/n: May represent vowel or consonant nasalization syllable-finally depending on the language

پ = П/п = P/p

ب = Б/б = B/b

ٻ = Њ/њ = Ƀ/ƀ: Sounds like either a voiced or nasal equivalent to B/b

م = М/м = M/m

ڞ = Ц/ц = C/c

ص = З/з or Ѕ/ѕ = Z/z

ز = З/з = Z̨/z̨: Sounds like a voiced or nasal equivalent to Z/z or like one would expect Z/z to sound where Z/z sounds like one would expect ‘dz’ to sound

ژ = Ж/ж = Ꞧ/ꞧ: Sounds like “zh“, generally r-ish

ء/ے = Ӏ/' = `/’: High tone, glottal or pharyngeal stop if a stop consonant

ه = Һ/һ = Ȝ/ȝ: Either a caron equivalent or a soft h-sound, usually voiced

ى = Й/й = J/ȷ: Sounds like what one would expect Y/y to sound, some alphabets use a dot above for the full consonant lowercase while the semiconsonant is still dotless

ر = Р/р = R/r: Sounds like either what one would expect it to sound, a voiced equivalent to H/h, or some kind of “zh” sound

ل = Л/л = L/l

ڵ = Ԉ/ԉ = Ꝡ/ꝡ or Lȷ/lȷ: Either a consonant equivalent to Y/y or a mix of L/l and J/ȷ, the latter Latinic form is meant to be written as a ligature of L and J

و or ڤ = В/в = V/v: Sounds either like what one would expect W/w to sound or what one would expect V/v to sound

ۏ or و = Ѡ/ѡ = W/w: Either a consonant equivalent to O/o or U/u

ڡ = Ф/ф = F/f: Can sometimes be voiced

ث = Щ/щ = Ş/ş: Sounds like Ś/ś

ش = Ш/ш = X/x: Sounds like either Š/š or a hard H/h

س = С/с = S/s: Can sometimes be voiced

ح or خ = Х/х = H/h: Can be either hard or soft, usually voiceless

ح = Ӿ/ӿ = Ħ/ħ: Like H/h but pharyngeal, almost always voiceless

ع = Ҁ/ҁ = Ꜫ/ꜫ: Low tone or a pharyngeal stop (The Latinic form is a logical extension of the Terran use for the latter, in fact)

غ =  Ӷ/ӷ = Ł/ł: Either a dot-above equivalent or a voiced equivalent to H/h, usually hard

Vowels: Some of these can function as semiconsonants and in some other orthographies, there may be vowel digraphs to indicate tone, and nasalization may be indicated by N/n (see above) while vowel lengthening is indicated by the vowel being doubled or an equivalent thereof, and the Arabic version would be too difficult to describe here in simple terms

[Ring above] = [Nothing]

А/а = A/a

И/и = I/ı: Often indicates unrounded palatalization medially, and it’s often followed by J/ȷ if lengthened

Ь/ь = Ư/ư: Indicates either an unrounded equivalent to U/u or a vowel equivalent to R/r and often indicates a corresponding consonant sound changing medially, and it’s often followed by V/v or R/r respectively if lengthened

У/у = U/u: Indicates labialization medially, generally rounded, and it’s often followed by V/v or W/w

Ү/ү = Y/y: The other possible sound is that of Guanhva’ U/u where U/u has a sort of “oo” sound other than that, and if lengthened it’s often followed by J/ȷ or V/v respectively when lengthened

Е/е = E/e: The usual inherent vowel in the Arabic script, and in Guanhva’, this is equivalent to Ơ/ơ (see below)

Ѧ/ѧ or Э/э = Ę/ę: Equivalent to Ë/ë but not strictly used in diphthongs or triphthongs, or a vowel equivalent to R/r

Ъ/ъ = Ơ/ơ: Either to O/o as I/ı is to Y/y, some sort of unrounded “uh” sound, or the vowel equivalent to L/l, often followed by a V/v or L/l respectively if lengthened, also the inherent vowel in some Arabic writing systems

О/о = O/o: Either like its Guanhva’ use or its Mongolian use, can be a medial semiconsonant, often followed by W/w if lengthened

Ө/ө = Ɵ/ɵ: Equivalent to Ö/ö, either like its Mongolian use or the equivalent to Ø/ø, which sounds something like “oo” but not in the manner of Guanhva’ U/u, can be a semiconsonant in the equivalent to its Mongolian use, often followed by W/w if lengthened

Ѫ/ѫ = Ą/ą: To put it simply, somewhere between A/a and O/o, or a vowel equivalent to L/l, often followed by W/w or L/l respectively if lengthened

While there are 6 tonal/pitch diacritcs/letters in total, 2 to 4 are preferred if tones or pitch accents are involved, and Guanhva’ here uses final letters/bases that only are used to indicate tones. The Arabic-script utilizes diacritics to represent vowels, a ring above for no vowel, and diacritics not used there normally in that manner for some vowels.

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Xiangqi, Janggi, and derived variants

Xiangqi (literally 象Şiaŋ棋çi / Śìàŋćí, see here, and Şaŋꜫţı’ / Щагҁћи’ / ثَگعچِے [Latinic, Cyrillic, modified Arabic-Chinese] in the Verden version) has the following pieces:

Infantry (fW, flrW): Starts out as moving both passively and captruing 1 space directly forward, can also move 1 space horizontally once crossing the river but does not otherwise promote, meaning that it’s stuck on the far rank once it reaches said rank

General (W): Royal wazir (piece that moves 1 space orthogonally, as in along rook lines), must not be ‘seen’ by the other general, confined to the palace and starts at the central back space of the palace (3x3 area at the central 3 files and back 3 ranks on each side of the board)

Advisor (F): Also known as a ferz, as in 1 space diagonally, the inverse of the wazir, confined to the cross (central and corner spaces of the palace), one starts in each back corner of the palace

Elephant (nA): exactly 2 spaces as a bishop, these are limited to 7 (key) spaces each due to being unable to cross the river

Horse: Like a knight but can be blocked by an orthogonally adjacent piece

Chariot (R, F, 2B): As a rook in addition to being able to move diagonally along either cross

Cannon (mRcpR): Like a rook but must leap over exactly one intervening piece to capture

Victory is through checkmate, which is somewhat easier in and of itself due to 

Janggi (literally 장기 / Jaŋgi, Zaŋgı in the Verden version, note the lack of a dot over default I/i, that’s still the norm on Verden)

The main differences are the river being not present in gameplay, an option to swap pairs of elephants and horses at initial setup, and some pieces having different movements as described below:

General (K): Can also move as an advisor, so like a restricted king

Guard (FW): Can also move as a wazir, so it has the same movements as the general

Elephant: One space orthogonally, then two diagonally outward, must stop at the farthest spaces, not limited to a small amount of spaces like its Śìàŋćí equivalent

Bombard (pR): Like a cannon but travels in the same way it captures, with an intervening piece

I’ve been thinking of a few variants of those for the Verden Chronicles setting, and a few would be as follows:

Arkona (Аркона): Named for the last Slavic “pagan” stronghold and also for its name being derived from the Hellenic άρχων (’árhąn’ in Verden Hellenic, meaning ‘archon’ [in Verden terms, this refers to the closest objectively real thing to a deity] or ‘leader’), this game combines elements of Şaŋꜫţı’ and Zaŋgı, and it can be played with a standard river-chess board. In-universe, it was created in remembrance of those oppressed by despots using Christianity as an excuse. It has the following pieces and setup:

Pawns (fmWfcF, flrmWfcF): With 9 per side, they take up the entirety of the row they start on in the initial setup, and they start out as moving as their regular equivalents but become able to passively move horizontally when crossing the river, and they promote to stewards when ending up in the promotion zone.

Stewards (mWcF): Like pawns but can move sideways or backward as well, so they travel as wazirs and capture as ferzes, and they only occur from pawn promotion

General: Same as in Şaŋꜫţı’

Advisors: Same as in Şaŋꜫţı’

Elephants (A): Same as in Şaŋꜫţı’, except they can leap like their Caturaŋga and Middle Eastern Chess counterparts, not called elephants in Slavic languages but the equivalent to archers instead

Horses (N): Like regular knights

Chariots: Same as in Şaŋꜫţı’

Bombards: As in Zaŋgı (this means that they cannot move as rooks, hence the decision), called the equivalent to rams in Slavic languages (by comparison, what would be called bishops on Terra would be called couriers on Verden)

Its Janggi equivalent is Dry Arkona (named for the functional lack of a river), which applies similar changes to Zaŋgı.

Pawns: Unlike regular pawns, these start out able to move horizontally, and their promotion is still the same

Stewards: Same as in Arkona

King: Same as in Zaŋgı

Guards: Same as in Zaŋgı

Elephants: As 3,2 leapers (generally called either giraffes, their original name, or zebras on Terra)

Horses: Same as in Arkona

Chariots: Same as in Arkona

Bombards: Same as in Arkona

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Transliterations of Chinese languages

While the most widely spoken Chinese language is “Mandarin”, that is simply one of several Altaic languages with a relatively similar structure, vowels, and consonants. They may be translated in two ways depending on the era to put it simply.

The old way would be based on Mongolian, considering the Mongolian alphabetic script was used alongside the regular and familiar semanto-phonetic character system in the Middle Ages. The Manchu alphabet, the literal Chinese alphabet in question, would with “Mandarin” transliterate as follows:

Consonants: Any deviation from expectations shall be mentioned

N/n

Ŋ/ŋ: Phonetically ‘ng’, usually a final

K/k: Phonetically ‘kh’

G/g: Phonetically ‘k’

H/h: Could be either hard or soft

B/b: Phonetically ‘p’

P/p: Phonetically ‘ph’

S/s

Ş/ş: “Sh” sound

T/t: Phonetically ‘th’ 

D/d: Phonetically ‘t’

L/l

M/m

Ç/ç: Phonetically ‘tş’ or ‘z̧h’

Z̧/z̧: Phonetically ‘dş’

J/j: “Y” sound

R/r 

F/f

V/v: “W” sound

C/c: Phonetically ‘ts’

Z/z: Phonetically ‘ds’

Ȼ/ȼ: Like Ç/ç but with a sort of r-ish vibe to it, phonetically ‘ƶh’

Ƶ/ƶ: Like Z̧/z̧ but with a sort of r-ish vibe to it

Vowels: There were no tonal diacritics, the semanto-phonetic characters were the tone indicators

A/a: “Ah” sound

E/e: “Uh” or “eh” sound

I/i: “Ee” sound

O/o: “Ow” sound

U/u: “Oo” sound

Y/y: Like I/i but with rounded lips (represented in Manchu as a ‘ioi’ ligature)

Therefore, when Xiangqi (象棋, Chinese Chess) originated, it would have been transcribed as the equivalent to ‘Şiaŋçi’, and this is just for the letters used to transcribe Medieval Guanhua, aka “Mandarin”

Come the modern era, the Bobpomofo semisyllabary was used for phonetic transcriptions of the semanto-phonetic system instead, and the CCP came up with the shitty “Hanyu Pinyin” (not as shitty as the Wade-Giles predecessor, one that used the baffling “hs” among other things, though) out of spite for Taiwan, which still uses Bopomofo, which shall be transliterated as below:

Strictly Initials: These would sound like the above unless otherwise indicated, and Ź/ź to Š/š are written like their Serbo-Croatian equivalents based on the very specific placements of the 1st 3 of the 6

B/b

P/p

M/m

F/f

D/d

T/t

N/n

L/l

G/g

K/k

H/h

Ź/ź: Equivalent to Z̧/z̧, always precedes I/i or Y/y, represented by the CCP jab against Taiwan as “j”

= Ć/ć: Equivalent to Ç/ç, always precedes I/i or Y/y, represented by the CCP jab against Taiwan as “q”

= Ś/ś: Palatal Ş/ş equivalent, always precedes I/i or Y/y , represented by the CCCP jab against Taiwan as “x”

Ž/ž:  Equivalent to Ƶ/ƶ, represented by the CCCP jab against Taiwan as “zh”

Č/č:  Equivalent to Ȼ/ȼ, represented by the CCCP jab against Taiwan as “ch”

Š/š: R-ish Ş/ş equivalent, represented by the CCCP jab against Taiwan as “sh”

R/r

Z/z

C/c

S/s

Finals / Semivowels: Other than I/i, U/u, and Y/y, these are all strictly finals

A/a

O/o

E/e

Ë/ë: Always has an “eh” sound and always occurs in diphthongs and here would not have any further diacritics, those would be attached to the other vowels

Ai

Ei: Represented by the CCP representation without an e- arbitrarily in trigraphs

Au: Represented by the CCP representation as “ao”, even though it does not actually sound like the Japanese ‘ao’ diphthong

Ou

An

(E)n: Has an attached E/e by itself

Aŋ

(E)ŋ: Has an attached E/e by itself

(E)r: (E)r equivalent to the (E)ŋ character

I/i: Equivalent to both the Manchu I/i and J/j, initially phonetically ‘ii’

U/u: Equivalent to both the Manchu U/u and V/v, initially phonetically ‘uu’

Y/y: Like I/i but with rounded lips, represented inconsistently in the CCP jab against Taiwan, initially phonetically ‘yy’

It also has tonal diacritcs, but not the equivalent to a line over a vowel like the CCP would imply.

This results in what was once ‘象Şiaŋ棋çi’ now being ㄒㄧㄤˋㄑㄧˊ (‘Śìàŋćí’)

It’s worth noting that there are other Bopomofo characters, these are the ones used for Guanhùà, aka “Mandarin”.

For my Verden Chronicles setting, I would use a slightly modified version of the Manchu version, which would also have 1:1 Cyrillic, Arabic-script, and ‘Phags-Pa alphabets, and Bopomofo would be irrelevant due to its relatively recent origin.

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Verden Chronicles background

To start off at the beginning, thousands of years ago, an alien civilization came to the planet their evolutionary ancestors evolved from millions of years before. Their purpose of arriving as ultimately because of their pursuit of knowledge, no matter the cost. Thus, they decimated the populations of what sapient inhabitants there were and created a select few species from modified DNA of a certain group of the sapients. The resulting beings were highly adaptable and literally designed to be slaves, and they ultimately rebelled against their creators, driving them away but with so much of a resulting loss that they were driven to a stone age.

The slaves were humanity, or more specifically, those and closely related others. The creators/masters served as the inspiration of angel and demon equivalents alike in many mythologies. The period before the Stone Age was what would eventually be called the Golden Age, but that’s a misnomer. Sometime after the Fall, as the event became known as, other extraterrestrial civilizations decided to take advantage of humanity, driven particularly by the unique circumstances involved. As the native Terran sapient civilizations finally fell one by one and resulting ones to humans, other extraterrestrial civilizations posed as either the gods of their preexisting faiths or were directly involved in the creation of new religions, and those combined factors ultimately resulted in literally all modern Terran religions, tribal or otherwise. This is what would become the Aeon of Gods, succeeding the Aeon of Tragedy.

After the Aeon of Gods came the Aeon of Monsters, with dwindling populations of megafauna still posing a serious threat to many human civilizations. These included more well known prehistoric Cenozoic mammal megafauna as well as dragons and persisting dinosaur populations.

Megamammals: These included various rhinoceros-like mammals, elephant types, and now extinct big cats and megamarsupials, and they are at least the partial source of the concept of several mythological creatures.

Dinosaurs: The Grand Bleak Death, the extraterrestrial plague that wiped out most dinosaurs all those millions of years ago, did not entirely do so, at all. The result was barely persisting populations, and also the ancestors of various civilizations that left Terra for other Telluric (habitable to Terran life) worlds. The “gods” that created humanity were among the latter. The still Terran populations also had some of the sapient species that came before the creation of humans. While some may claim that birds are dinosaurs, that’s like saying that humans are monkeys.

Dragons: Very far from what modern fantasy cliches imply, these “successors” of dinosaurs in general are simply any animal of the rhynocephalia order, the sole surviving Terran population of which are the tuataras, natives to what is now New Zealand which look and act almost exactly like common lizards. As for the exact variety, there were limbless, winged, and tetrapodal ones, but not hexapodal ones outside of some rare mutations. Some of the megadragons, or dragon megafauna, still persist on other planets due to having been introduced to other Telluric planets, along with some other microdragon species.

After these megafauna populations died out, then came the Aeon of Heroes, corresponding to the late Bronze Age. The Aeon of Heroes saw some alien interference, but only at very certain events.

After the Aeon of Heroes came the Aeon of Myths, which lasted until after the Renaissance. After the Aeon of Myths comes the modern Aeon of Hunts and Wars, or as some like to call it, the “Aeon of Horus”, and it’s the single worst period of human existence since the Aeon of Tragedy because of evil ruling the world.

As for who keeps tabs on the hidden history of humanity and monsters from here and beyond, that would be the Secretarians, and the Secretarians have many enemies.

Secretarians: Beginning in Bavaria as one of several groups calling themselves “Illuminati”, the Secretarians relatively quickly changed their name to avoid confusion with the others. While those other groups were fighting with each other for a chance of male-heterosupremacist dominion over Terra, the Secretarians chose to stay back and focus on preserving the more fantastical elements of human history. The Secretarians were once a Gnostic group, but eventually allowed non-Gnostics in out of convenience, but they have always been advocates of democracy and heavily critical of false democracy. They operate through some morally questionable methods, but they prefer not to and ultimately seek to preserve history as other Illuminatis try to destroy it.

Mandate: One of the other Illuminatis, these white-male-cisheterosupremacist-antitheist fascists were ultimately responsible for people no longer believing that dragons, dinosaurs, and extraterrestrials are real if having ever existed. They operate through infiltration, bribery, and terrorism, and among their ranks were Michael Moore (he infiltrated the Catholic Church and deliberately put a Catholic and Antisemitic spin in anti-everybody-else propaganda), Ayn Rand, and Jeffery Epstein (murdered not just for the huge public scandal but also for his knowledge of the Mandate). Notably, they began as part of the Roman Catholic Church and existed to hide various atrocities committed by the Church and its subjects against nonhuman sapients and also being responsible for mass abductions of humans, but they broke off and more or less declared war on theists because they see theists as “knowing too much” because of their warped attempts at logic.

Mirage Men: A secret part of the US government with a twofold function of trying to learn the secrets of the Secretarians and keeping top secrets by making shit up. They are popularly known as “Men in Black” but find that hilarious, especially considering they usually wear normal clothing. They make fantastical stories up to cover up real events both fantastic and mundane, mostly involving aliens and intentionally inspired by Hollywood movies. They play the part of “concerned” civilians and have been known to steal identities of actual civilians just for the sake of the act. Their ultimate goal is to keep the truth hidden but not to erase knowledge of it outright but instead preserve it, because they’re exactly the liars to do it. Other countries eventually formed their own versions for similar reasons, but often with a more Mandate-like approach.

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Transliteration of Hellenic alphabets

Hellenic (”Greek”) languages are a series of Indo-European languages with the distinction being mostly based on era but with a few ancient outliers.

The ancient version of the standard alphabet would be as follows:

Α/α - A/a: ’Ah’ sound

Β/β/ϐ - B/b: Hard voiced bilabial, phonetically ‘b’ 

Γ/γ - Ŋ/ŋ: Hard voiced velar, phonetically ‘g’ or more rarely ‘ng’ (the Latinic one given consistently represents ‘ng’ in general, but it is the linguistically closest match here)

Δ/δ - Đ/đ: Hard voiced dental, phonetically ‘d’

Ε/ε, Ⲉ/ⲉ - E/e: ’Eh’ sound

Ζ/ζ - Z/z: Either like ’tz’, voiceless initial or final and voiced otherwise or in certain digraphs, or like ‘z’

Η/η - H/h or Ę/ę: Originally an ‘h’ sound, then an unrelated ’ae’ sound

Θ/θ/ϑ - T/t: Hard aspirated voiceless dental, phonetically ‘th’

Ι/ι - I/i: ’Ee’/y- sound, could be either a vowel or a consonant

Κ/κ/ϰ - G/g: hard aspirated voiceless velar, phonetically ‘k’

Λ/λ - L/l: As expected

Μ/μ - M/m: Made attached voiced/voiceless consonants voiced

Ν/ν - N/n: Made attached voiced/voiceless consonants voiced

Ξ/ξ - X/x: ’Gs’ sound, voiceless initial or final and voiced otherwise or in certain digraphs

Ο/ο - O/o: ’Ow’ sound

Π/π/ϖ - P/p: Hard aspirated voiceless bilabial, phonetically ‘p’

Ρ/ρ/ϱ - R/r: Generally rolled

Σ/σ/ς - S/s/ſ: Either like s or z, voiceless initial or final and voiced otherwise or in certain digraphs, or just ‘s’, so consistently a sibilant

Τ/τ - D/d: Hard voiceless dental, phonetically ‘d’

Υ/υ - U/u: Originally an ‘oo’ sound, then an ‘uy’ sound by itself, like Ι/ι but with rounded lips

Φ/φ/ϕ - F/f: Originally a hard aspirated voiceless bilabial, phonetically ‘kh’, then soft voiceless bilabial, phonetically ‘f’

Χ/χ - K/k: Hard aspirated voiceless velar, phonetically ‘kh’

Ψ/ψ - Ɔ/ɔ: ’Bs’, voiceless initial or final and voiced otherwise or in certain digraphs (the Latinic letter presented was originally used this way in ancient Rome)

Ω/ω - Ą/ą: ’Oh’ sound, to Ο/ο as Ε/ε was to Η/η

- There were diacritics in a tonal variant, and the only one of still used is the acute mark. Also, what is commonly mistranslated as ‘H/h’ is actually a diacritic best transliterated to ‘

Variant letters: These were used in various variant alphabets, the latest of which was the Byzantine one, and the earliest of which were continuations of original forms of certain baseline ones

Ϝ/ϝ, Ȣ/ȣ - V/v or Ȣ/ȣ: ’oo’/w sound, equivalent to the Ου (Ou) digraph when a vowel, a replacement of the original use of Υ/υ, the second form was the Byzantine one, and one ancient variant resembled Ͷ/ͷ

Ͷ/ͷ - C/c: ‘Tz’ sound where Ζ/ζ had a ‘z’ sound

Ͳ/ͳ - Ç/ç or C/c: Some kind of ‘c’ sound, likely a ‘tsh’ sound or something like that

Ͱ/ͱ - H/h: Like an ‘h’ sound of some sort, a replacement of the original use of Η/η

Ϙ/ϙ - Q/q: Varies, one possible sound was equivalent to Χϝ (Kv), based on Κ/κ

Ϻ/ϻ - ẞ/ß: Like ‘s’/’z’ where Σ/σ/ς would have sounded like ‘sh’/’zh’, based on said other letter

Ϛ/ϛ - ſt/st: Sounds like Στ (Sd), the form was ironically (see above) inspired by Ϝ/ϝ but it’s otherwise unrelated (the uppercase-stand-in for the given transliteration is not an actual uppercase, but it is the closest to one)

Ϸ/ϸ - Ş/ş: ‘Sh’ sound, not used in Hellenic languages

The modern alphabets are based around the corresponding Hellenic one, which does not exactly match the language anymore:

Α/α - A/a: ’Ah’ sound

Β/β/ϐ - V/v: Soft voiced bilabial, so as expected

Γ/γ - G/g: Soft voiced velar, like G/g in Dutch

Δ/δ - D/d: Soft voiced dental, like the ‘th’ in ‘with’

Ε/ε, Ⲉ/ⲉ - E/e: ’Eh’ sound

Ζ/ζ - Z/z: Voiced sibilant, like ‘z’

Η/η - Y/y: Like Ι/ι but only as a vowel

Θ/θ/ϑ - Þ/þ: Soft voiceless dental, like the ‘th’ in ‘thin’

Ι/ι - I/i: Same as its ancient use

Κ/κ/ϰ - K/k: Hard velar, usually voiceless

Λ/λ - L/l: As expected

Μ/μ - M/m: Gives voice to certain letters in certain digraphs

Ν/ν - N/n: Gives voice to certain letters in certain digraphs

Ξ/ξ - X/x: Pretty much the same as its ancient use

Ο/ο - O/o: ’Ow’ or ‘oh’ sound

Π/π/ϖ - P/p: Hard bilabial, usually voiceless

Ρ/ρ/ϱ - R/r: Generally rolled

Σ/σ/ς - S/s/ſ: Voiceless sibilant, like ‘s’

Τ/τ - T/t: Hard dental, usually voiceless

Υ/υ - U/u: Like Ι/ι as a vowel and Β/β as a consonant by itself

Φ/φ/ϕ - F/f: As expected

Χ/χ - H/h: Soft voiceless velar, like H/h in Serbo-Croatian

Ψ/ψ - Ɔ/ɔ: Pretty much the same as its ancient use

Ω/ω - Ǫ/ǫ: ‘Ow’ sound

There are variant letters in other modern alphabets, and of them are equivalent to Latinic letters with diacritics while others are based on variants of existing ones and/or Latinic equivalents.

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Umbra Nihil (from the Latin words meaning roughly ‘shade of nothingness’) is/was a Finnish psychedelic progressive doom metal band with Markus Marjomaa of Aarni as one of its members, and frontman Ville “Vilpir” Vierimaa was also a session member of Aarni album Bathos as previously mentioned, and Jari Kuntola handled the bass. Umbra Nihil began as doom/death metal, and not too dissimilar from Aarni, but shifted to “traditional” doom metal later on, and I prefer the death metal material myself.

The untitled 2002 split with Aarni has 3 songs from Duumipeikon Paluu, some exclusive Aarni songs, and the partially rerecorded entirety of Enough, or Too Much by Umbra Nihil. This release manages to be artistically consistent despite the differences between the acts and is how I obtained the funeral doom tracks from Duumipeikon Paluu in the first place.

Tracklist:

Aarni side: 

1. Ubbo-Sathla (instrumental and non-metal, exclusive)

2. Myrrys (this is yet another release with this song, not surprising at this point)*

3. Transcend Humanity**

4. Liber Umbrarum vel Coniunctio [The Book of Shadows or Conjunction] (exclusive)*

5. Reaching Azathoth**

6. Anima [Soul] (instrumental and non-metal, exclusive)

Umbra Nihil side:

7. Follow and Believe / Fall Without Relief**

8. A Mere Shell*

9. My Way to the Lakeshore (instrumental and non-metal)

10. Determination**

11. Water in Lungs*

I will go over any song here not in the frequently mentioned Aarni demo first, but I’m not particularly into any of them. Ubbo-Sathla is a guitar-only one of those non-metal intro songs, a trend I’ve never been into, and is named for a Cthulhu Mythos deity believed by its worshippers to have created life on Earth due to it literally secreting unicellular lifeforms constantly. Liber Umbrarum vel Coniunctio has Ecclesiastic Latin lyrics like the previous Persona Mortuae Cutis, but its lyrics concern an exorcism of a bunch of ghosts. Anima is an interlude in the same vein as Ubbo-Sathla but with acoustic guitar instead.

The Umbra Nihil side has more surreal lyrics than anything else, and it starts off with one of my favorite 2 of the 5, the relatively melodic Follow and Believe / Fall Without Relief. A Mere Shell is more on the surreal side but is not a favorite of mine. My Way to the Lakeshore is a post-rock and non-metal instrumental interlude, being this side’s equivalent to Anima. Determination is the second of my favorite songs from this side, and it starts off with an industrial post rock vibe but changes course toward the end of the song to being more melodic like Follow and... but faster paced than anything else on this album. Water in Lungs, the finale of the album, is musically halfway between A Mere Shell and My Way to the Lakeshore, so it’s very much post-metal.

Gnoia is the sole funeral doom metal release by Umbra Nihil, and it’s darker and more surreal overall than the Aarni split, lyrics and all. The cover art was done by Mikko Lehtinen, whose only mention on MA is that he did this cover art. The only ones that aren’t my favorites out of this album are the last 2.

Tracklist:

1. Nocturnal Occurences*

2. Fear of the Void*

3. Gnoia (instrumental)*

4. Shields Down*

5. Words Left Unspoken*

6. The Dreams in the Witch-House

7. Fade Out (instrumental)

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

I shall start doing music reviews mostly alphabetically. For this reason, I shall start with an act I’ve enjoyed early on, Finnish surreal doom metal act Aarni. Mostly a one-man project by Markus “Master Warjomaa” Marjomaa, Aarni has had some session musicians in the past, although as the act does not take itself all that seriously, there is a fictional joke lineup.

The name itself has many different meanings in Suomi (primary Finnish language, a northern Uralic language), including but not limited to a guardian spirit or monster. The lyrics vary in context and are generally surreal, often with surreal humor involved. I may be into surreal humor, but in order for me to enjoy something aesthetically, I have to take it seriously, but the earlier material at least has that covered to an extent. Also, I really hope this site doesn’t censor the given covers of the double demo, given the bulge/codpiece/whatever of the funny blue-headed guy.

Its earlier material has elements of black and death metal, even with funeral doom metal, and is generally more serious, generally. Ultimately, my favorite material for Aarni specifically is limited to technically 2 releases, an untitled demo compilation, and Bathos.

The double demo release (the cover is of the remastered 2007 version, the original release was in 2003, and also has the funny blue-faced man) consists of the untitled 2001 demo and Duumipeikon Paluu in that order with the respective parts’ song orders unchanged, with the song Myrrys (Finnish word for a shamanic trance) being the overlap between the 2 releases and occurring only once. The 1st, 4th, and 6th songs are my least favorites out of it. 

Tracklist:

1. The Black Keyes (of R'lyeh)

2. Persona Mortuae Cutis [Dead Skin Mask] (Slayer cover)*

3. Metsänpeitto [Forest Canopy]*

4. Myrrys [no exact English translation]

5. Lampaan Vaatteissa [Sheep’s Clothing]*

6. The Weird of Vipunen

7. Transcend Humanity*

8. Reaching Azathoth*

The 2nd song, Persona Morae Cutis, is a cover of Dead Skin Mask by Slayer and goes for a distinctively Aarni interpretation of it, with keyboard, even, along with a Latinized title and lyrics. Metsänpeitto (meaning ‘forest canopy’, despite what the website claims) is instrumental goes in an industrial direction but is not dissimilar. Lampaan Vaatteissa is also instrumental but replaces the industrial element with some flute playing. Transcend Humanity is the 1st of the more doomy songs, basically funeral doom metal but with a faster-paced bridge, and the lyrics read like a conspiracy “theorist’s” rantings and ravings surprisingly well. The even more doomy follow-up and finale of both this and Duumipeikon Paluu is Reaching Azathoth, an even more doomy musical adaption of a passage from an H.P. Lovecraft story, namely Azathoth, and delves into surreal horror well beyond what Aarni has produced since. For context, Azathoth is the Cthulhu Mythos’s interpretation of the Christian god (of the Old Testament, anyway) and the uncaring master of the Outer Gods.

Bathos, on the other hand, is its own original album, and one with some session musicians. Musically speaking, it’s similar to both components of the double demo release, but with less black/death metal elements and less dark. The beautiful cover art was done by Tuomas M. Mäkelä, a seasoned Finish musical/visual artist who has, among other things, been one of the members of ambient act Jääportit. This album contains much more esoteric references, especially to alchemy.

Tracklist:

1. Ονειροσκóπος [Oneiroscope]

2. Squaring the Circle*

3. Quinotaurus (Twelve Stars in Sight)*

4. Kivijumala [Stone God/Idol]**

5. V.I.T.R.I.O.L

6. The Thunder, Perfect Mindfuck**

7. Mental Fugue

8. Niut Net Meru [City of Pyramids(?)]**

9. Kesäyö [Summer Night]**

Session Musicians:

Ville “Rhesus Christ / Vilpir” Vierimaa: contributions to #4

Sampo “Genius Albert Frankenstein” Marjomaa: Vocals (3 and 5)

The meaning of the 1st song’s title amounts to “a dream-viewing device”, and the song itself is not metal, like V.I.T.R.I.O.L. Squaring the Circle has lyrics that only make sense if one knows anything about Medieval alchemy and the works of occultist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung, and the song itself is not the best in my opinion. Quinotaurus, on the other hand has word salad lyrics, and the non-subtitle title refers to a mer-bull sea monster from Medieval French folklore and has guest vocals from Markus’s brother Sampo. Kivijumala is a funeral doom song, but not as dark as either originating from Duumipeikon Paluu. The Thunder, Perfect Mindfuck is named for The Thunder, Perfect Mind, a Gnostic text written originally in Coptic. Mental Fugue is a rather meh-worthy instrumental song that’s barely metal. Niut Net Meru (allegedly Kemetic for ‘City of Pyramids’, but definitely mistransliterated if not outright gibberish) has a Kemetism (ancient Egyptian polytheism, it actually still exists despite what the bigoted media claims) and Thelema theme and the lyrics are either Kemetic (ancient Egyptian language) or vaguely Kemetic-sounding gibberish. Kesäyö is the industrial-tinged instrumental final song and easily the most surreal one in this album.

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Chess variant mentions, and also transliterations

I play chess variants online frequently, mostly through here. International Chess is not even remotely the only one or even the first, and there are others often played as well if not instead in some areas, but mostly in various parts of Asia. Also, all of Asia counts here, not just far east/northeast Asia.

Anyway, for the sake of considering non-English languages, I will also be posting transliterations of various non-Latinic writing systems I came up with. That will in fact be relevant here, considering various pre-modern Asian chess variants, including but not limited to the oldest known one of all, Caturangga (not exactly a literal transliteration, but pretty close, and the ‘C’ sounds like or close to what an English/Spanish speaker would expect ‘ch’ to sound like).

I am particularly interested in Xiangqi, Janggi, Chess with Different Armies, and certain Shogi variants, so expect some focus on variants of those. The east/northeast variants are definite outliers, being less directly influenced by Caturangga than Middle Eastern and southeast Asian ones.

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

On music that will be mentioned

In terms of my taste in music, I’m mostly into black and/or doom/death metal. I am not into -core (except a select few goregrind acts), punk, most thrash (so no “crossover”), harsh noise (except if I can withstand the noisy elements, which is very rarely), most brutal death metal, and most raw BM. I’m also not into “traditional” black metal and in truth most black metal in general, and out of the closest-to-mainstream acts thereof, Celtic Frost (not always BM) and early Dimmu Borgir (began as gothic BM) are my favorites, and all that combined is just scratching the surface or me.

As for that which I tend to like, it weighs towards industrial metal, dark ambient (when still metal), funeral doom, non-European folk metal, gothic metal, and outright surreal music. I have also looked around the internet to such an extent that, if one was to recommend something to me, chances are that I would at least know what it sounds like to some extent.

I’m well aware of the whole “NSBM” controversy (and some moral equivalents thereof, like an alarming amount of “unblack” metal acts), and I avoid those acts like plague and otherwise separate the art from the artist. It’s worth noting that people like that, despite their claims to the contrary and active attempts at co-opting and claim-jumping BM (and also runes, Asatru, and the like), are only a vocal minority and are best ignored, because what they want most is to not be ignored and they would absolutely hate that.

My point of making this post is so that readers will know what to expect from here and why I do some things. My reviews here will explain the naming choices and also the lyrics to some extent, and there will be MONKE.

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Verden Chronicles

This is the working name for a hard science fiction ‘verse I’m coming up with. It will push the boundaries of hard science fiction, like with dragons and such, while avoiding fantasy tropes commonly used in sci-fi, such as teleportation and time travel, and yes, those are inherently fantasy tropes instead of sci-fi tropes. Yes, Star Trek is science-fantasy (sci-fi and fantasy combined), and even has literal gods in the setting, which makes those “skeptic” antitheists often using Star Trek derived imagery hypocritical.

It is based on how the Ancient Astronaut Theory would work in a hard sci-fi setting, which is something a lot of AAT fans seem to actively avoid. It would have its in-universe scientific explanations for things like vampires and werewolves, for example, and it would have a heavy historical basis in such a way that it’s a lot more scientifically and historically accurate than most AAT variants that already exist. That is terribly ironic considering AAT is supposed to give scientific explanations to many mythological events and such.

AAT media tends to have ugly shades of racism and science denialism, or more accurately the more popular media thereof, such as that hilariously bad show Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. I personally think that it’s precisely because of how bigoted, ignorant, and outright ridiculous that sort of hoopla is that it’s the popular representation of AAT, and if AAT does indeed have enough truth to it, those who would actively try to hide it would use bigoted pseudo-AAT media to do so. I completely intend to mock and satirize that here, don’t you, the reader, worry.

[loquaciousnesssesquipedalian]

Henlo, everyones

I’ve had this account for several months now and I decided to start using it. Expect sci-fi worldbuilding, chess variant stuff, music reviews, and assorted reblogs and often attached insight.