OKAY SO PEOPLE WANTED TO KNOW SO I DID MY BEST TO REWRITE IT!
(I HOPE IT MAKES SENSE I AM VERY TIRED AND THIS IS A LOT OF TEXT.)
My HC for Dwarf Beards and Gender Presentation
So the first thing you need to know is the average dwarf will have a primary braid and a secondary pair of braids to either side of it. These two sets of braids denote different things so
Primary Braid
The Primary Braid is the large braid down the center of the beard. Traditionally there are three recognized genders in Dwarven Society, though they do acknowledge an individual’s desire to express themselves in new ways. A traditional 3-strand braid denotes male preferred pronouns, a 4-strand braid denotes female preferred pronouns, and a 2-strand twist denotes a non-binary dwarf with gender-neutral pronouns. These are entirely based on gender expression and not related to sex or genitalia of the dwarf, which is considered a private matter that matters to no one but the dwarf and their mate.
It is possible for a dwarf not to have a primary braid, but this style is considered a time of transition or change in a dwarf’s life, and gender-neutral pronouns should be used until otherwise stated. Some dwarves cut off their primary braid when moving away from their home so as to reevaluate and reinvent themselves in their new residence, but it is not something all dwarves do.
The majority of dwarves use he/him pronouns outside of all-dwarven societies due to gender stigma against female presenting dwarves by other species, but in an all-dwarven society the mix of genders will be fairly even.
To save timelines I put the rest under the cut, but I talk about more below!
My super advanced mapmaking technique – a handful of dice makes the map nice
interesting method
My question is do the die affect topography any or just set the borders?
I imagine it’s up to the person making the map. But maybe the more dice in a single spot, the more mountainous or forested the area. Maybe choose a few dice to be deemed cities, and some dice for ruins.
Maybe let the dice choose, like a nat 20 would be the world capital, and 10’s would be mountains or something like that.
1-5: Plains and fields
6-8: Forests
9-11: Mountains
12-14: Tundras and snow covered lands
15-17: Farms and towns
18-19: Larger cities
20: Capitals and castles
what would happing if all the dice landed on a 20?
then you have a very busy continent
not all of those are d20s though, so you’d have to come up with another method for the other ones
Adjusted for all dice you might have
D20
1-5: Plains and fields
6-8: Forests
9-11: Mountains
12-14: Tundras and snow covered lands
15-17: Farms and towns
18-19: Larger cities
20: Capitals and castles
D12
1-3: Plains and fields
4-6: Forests
7-8: Mountains
9-10: Tundras and snow covered lands
11: Farms and towns
12: Larger cities
D10
1-3: Plains and fields
4-6: Forests
7-8: Mountains
9: Tundras and snow covered lands
10: Farms and towns
D8
1-4: Plains and fields
5-6: Forests
7: Mountains
8: Tundras and snow covered lands
D6
1-3: Plains and fields
4: Forests
5-6: Mountains
D4
1-2: Plains and fields
3: Forests
4: Mountains
Holy shit. Definitely using this.
I swore at how simple this motherfucking thing is. You’re all bastards and i love you.
Sometimes i think about the idea of Common as a language in fantasy settings.
On the one hand, it’s a nice convenient narrative device that doesn’t necessarily need to be explored, but if you do take a moment to think about where it came from or what it might look like, you find that there’s really only 2 possible origins.
In settings where humans speak common and only Common, while every other race has its own language and also speaks Common, the implication is rather clear: at some point in the setting’s history, humans did the imperialism thing, and while their empire has crumbled, the only reason everyone speaks Human is that way back when, they had to, and since everyone speaks it, the humans rebranded their language as Common and painted themselves as the default race in a not-so-subtle parallel of real-world whiteness.
In settings where Human and Common are separate languages, though (and I haven’t seen nearly as many of these as I’d like), Common would have developed communally between at least three or four races who needed to communicate all together. With only two races trying to communicate, no one would need to learn more than one new language, but if, say, a marketplace became a trading hub for humans, dwarves, orcs, and elves, then either any given trader would need to learn three new languages to be sure that they could talk to every potential customer, OR a pidgin could spring up around that marketplace that eventually spreads as the traders travel the world.
Drop your concept of Common meaning “english, but in middle earth” for a moment and imagine a language where everyone uses human words for produce, farming, and carpentry; dwarven words for gemstones, masonry, and construction; elven words for textiles, magic, and music; and orcish words for smithing weaponry/armor, and livestock. Imagine that it’s all tied together with a mishmash of grammatical structures where some words conjugate and others don’t, some adjectives go before the noun and some go after, and plurals and tenses vary wildly based on what you’re talking about.
Now try to tell me that’s not infinitely more interesting.
According to the laws of physics, a planet in the shape of a doughnut (toroid) could exist. Physicist Anders Sandberg says that such planets would have very short nights and days, an arid outer equator, twilight polar regions, moons in strange orbits and regions with very different gravity and seasons.
petition to turn the earth into a fucking doughnut
THE STORY POTENTIAL FOR THIS IS AMAZING YOU COULD HAVE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CIVILIZATIONS SEPARATED BY DESERT ON THE OUTSIDE AND AN PERMANENT NIGHT-WINTER ON THE INSIDE
YOU COULD (WITH A LITTLE FUDGING ON TIDES OR SOME STABILIZATION FORCE) HAVE MOONS THAT GO THROUGH THE FUCKING HOLE, WITH LUNAR-POWERED SORCERERS LIVING ON THE INNER EQUATOR IN GIANT ICE CASTLES WAITING FOR THE TIME OF THE MONTH WHEN THE MOON ILLUMINATES THE ETERNAL NIGHTTIME AND THEIR SPELLS HAVE THE MOST POWER
YOU COULD HAVE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SPECIES THAT EVOLVED ON OPPOSITE SIDES WHO ARE BASICALLY ALIENS ON THE SAME PLANET AND WHOEVER CROSSES THE GIANT DESERT OR ARCTIC CIRCLE (HEH) MAKES FIRST CONTACT
THIS IS SO COOL
THIS IS SO COOL
I WANT TO RUN FIFTY THOUSAND GAMES ON WORLDS LIKE THIS HOLY FUCK
THIS JUST IN IF I’M UNDERSTANDING THE MAGNETIC FIELDS CORRECTLY I THINK THE ETERNAL NIGHT ICE REALM WILL HAVE NEAR-CONSTANT ELECTRICAL STORMS
My super advanced mapmaking technique – a handful of dice makes the map nice
interesting method
My question is do the die affect topography any or just set the borders?
I imagine it’s up to the person making the map. But maybe the more dice in a single spot, the more mountainous or forested the area. Maybe choose a few dice to be deemed cities, and some dice for ruins.
Maybe let the dice choose, like a nat 20 would be the world capital, and 10’s would be mountains or something like that.
1-5: Plains and fields
6-8: Forests
9-11: Mountains
12-14: Tundras and snow covered lands
15-17: Farms and towns
18-19: Larger cities
20: Capitals and castles
what would happing if all the dice landed on a 20?
then you have a very busy continent
not all of those are d20s though, so you’d have to come up with another method for the other ones
Adjusted for all dice you might have
D20
1-5: Plains and fields
6-8: Forests
9-11: Mountains
12-14: Tundras and snow covered lands
15-17: Farms and towns
18-19: Larger cities
20: Capitals and castles
D12
1-3: Plains and fields
4-6: Forests
7-8: Mountains
9-10: Tundras and snow covered lands
11: Farms and towns
12: Larger cities
D10
1-3: Plains and fields
4-6: Forests
7-8: Mountains
9: Tundras and snow covered lands
10: Farms and towns
D8
1-4: Plains and fields
5-6: Forests
7: Mountains
8: Tundras and snow covered lands
D6
1-3: Plains and fields
4: Forests
5-6: Mountains
D4
1-2: Plains and fields
3: Forests
4: Mountains
Holy shit. Definitely using this.
I swore at how simple this motherfucking thing is. You’re all bastards and i love you.
In peacetime, the ruler grows their hair long. In war, they cut it short.
A ruler with long hair is held in great esteem, for defending the peace.
The traditional declaration of war is for the ruler to send their cut-off hair to the enemy ruler. The statement carries greater weight the longer the hair: to receive long hair says that you have angered one who is slow to anger, that you have incurred a wrath not easily woken.
Violent war-mongering leader frantically and aggressively tries to shave just a LITTLE hair off the top of their head into an envelope.
A faraway king receives a heavy wooden crate filled with a coil of the longest hair he has ever seen.
A despised ruler finds hundreds of pounds of cut-off ponytails at her castle entrance, each one belonging to her own people.
A young emperor refuses to cut their hair and insists on trying to make peace with invaders. The enemy leader steps forward, draws their blade, and cuts the emperor’s hair themselves.
Hellen cuts her hair off and throws it in Cathy’s face at her son’s soccer scrimmage.
@pumpkin-lith! Look at this! This could totally be tied into the thing I was telling you about with the CCs!
These are all so vivid and dramatic, like scenes from some ASOIAF type epic
I almost have to appreciate Jedi Trainee Hair because it’s so stupid. Like, why? FOR SO MANY REASONS, WHY?!
You know who has something stupid to say about this ridiculous haircut? Star Wars does, that’s who (who would have guessed?)!
Yes, my favorite, the non-canon The Jedi Path expands a bit on this silliness:
I love that non-humans make out WAY better in this game than humans do since they can kind of do whatever they want. No fair! They don’t even have to live with the shame of that awful ponytail!
Interestingly, AND IMPORTANTLY, this book makes no mention of said Terrible Ponytail being mandatory. It’s ALL about the braid. This is making me think of the discussion I had with people a while back about how maybe the Haircut was like, something that happened to Obi-Wan by accident and then Anakin just wanted to be cool like Obi-Wan so he asked for it, too? I think Kanan had it too (edit: I’m wrong and it’s even funnier this way), so maybe by then it had become Trendy, because Kenobi and Skywalker totally had this awesome ponytail when THEY were Padawans, so I want it too!
LOL forever that this part of the book is written by a Jedi Recruiter, who is apparently under the impression that well-kept Jedi Trainee Hair is helping to boost the overall public opinion of the Jedi. Oh, honey. No.
(And yes, there are written comments in the margin on this page, too, that got cut off. Qui-Gon comments that he finds this all rather restricting of the council. Obi-Wan comments that that’s no damn surprise. Hahaha.)
The Jedi Path is possibly my favorite Legends book.
Off the top of my head, it jibes with what I’ve discovered in other sources.
Queuing this with a reminder to self: add that Cartographer’s Guild thread link to this, it has more details w basically the same numbers.
… things i never did: add that link. Ahem.
Just to add re: horses re: typical 4 gaits
Walk is an average of 4mph Trot is an average of 8mph Canter is an average of 16-20 mph Gallop is an average of 25-30 mph
Your gallop is probably only gonna be 40 mph if a) your horse is really fit or b) your horse is built for running, a la the English Thoroughbred or the American Quarter Horse. Your horse also needs to be pretty physically fit to sustain a gallop for more than a couple of miles. Top level eventing equines, at the peak of physical fitness, only sustain a gallop for about 11 minutes/4 miles, and that’s a tremendous effort resulting from serious conditioning, and is also including going over/through various terrain and obstacles that the average horse might shy away from. If your horse hits that speed, they will need to recover immediately afterward, either through stopping, or going at the walk.
Your horse will probably be able to maintain a relatively high speed for longer if they are alternating between walking and trotting, with some cantering.
Good references for horse travel include the Pony Express, literally any cavalry program, and modern-day endurance racing.
More on horses and distance.
Message riders, including the Pony Express, would switch horses so they could run a horse to exhaustion without killing it and then grab another fresh one while a groom took care of the spent horse. Which would then do another run after it had recovered. Pony Express riders would switch horses about every 10 miles. Also, the riders were restricted to 125 pounds. Most Pony Express riders were teenaged boys. So, how far did a Pony Express rider ride in a day? About 75 miles. Still not 100. Could you do it? Probably, with multiple horses, but you’d be riding yourself beyond exhaustion and it’s more likely you’d fall off from tiredness, bluntly.
Stage coaches also used a similar system to maximize speed. A stagecoach could cover 60 to 70 miles per day. This was, by the way, the fastest way to travel in Regency England.
100 miles in a day on a single horse?
The Tevis Cup is a 100 mile race with a time limit of 24 hours. In 2016 the winning rider, Karen Donley, rode Royal Patron to the finish at Auburn at 9:48pm, having set off from Robie Park at 5:15am.
This means it took her 16.3 hours to cover the 100 mile distance on a single horse.
The Tevis Cup is the most difficult endurance ride in the world.
After such a ride, both horse and rider would be spent. They take days to recover from these rides. Days.
The horses have to be at least 8 years old to compete at the top level. They’re checked by a vet regularly, and these horses and riders train extensively.
There is absolutely no way horse and rider could cover 100 miles in a day and be fit for anything else afterwards. Furthermore, if a top race rider is taking 16 hours to do that distance, with anything quicker likely to kill the horse…
70 is more reasonable, but they’re still not going to be much use.
So, how far should you have your character travel on horseback in one day.
The answer is 20-30 miles, maybe 40 if they’re on a road in level terrain. Less if they’re having to trailblaze, use game trails, etc. That is assuming that your characters know how to ride and that their horses are in appropriate condition.
It’s also assuming you don’t have a wounded, unconscious companion tied across the saddle. Or have a pack horse. Dead weight – unconscious or dead bodies, the deer you just killed, your packs, or somebody who doesn’t know how the heck to ride slow horses down considerably.
The distances are similar, by the way, for mules.
Have I already reblogged this at some point in the past?
Eh, still important to know.
Something else that’s important to note is that, if your characters are riding in a carriage, and they’re going to be traveling nonstop, especially at a fast pace, then there is no way they’ll be using the same team of horses the entire time.
So for an added bit of realism, mention that the few pit stops they make included getting a fresh team of horses.
I already mentioned that when talking about stagecoaches, but reblogging for the added clarification.
okay but things i’ve been thinking about that the internet has not been able to supply me an answer for: is it ever clarified where jedi get their robes? because i’ve read every relevant wikia and wikipedia and wookeepedia page and so on and NOTHING.
it’s only ever said that jedi “get” robes. that their robes are fitted sometimes to their climates or styles. but i don’t think they can just walk up into the star-wal-mart on naboo to pick up some jedi robes. (and yes, while other people wore styles LIKE jedi robes in the original trilogy, it was the prequels and so on that established that the robes ben kenobi was wearing and so on were fashioned in traditional jedi style and that was what was usual for them, as jedi would walk somewhere and people would KNOW they were jedi)
so where? was it a specific jedi’s job to make the robes? like that was his or her or their trade? or more likely, did each jedi have to make their own robes? as a friend suggested, with the monastic style of the jedi, you can imagine them saying you need to make their own clothes. therefore, sewing was a required jedi skill.
and now all i can think about is obi wan kenobi leaning over a sewing machine peacefully hemming his robes on a friday night with a cup of tea.
(and as justin put in my head, anakin frustrated to the ends of the earth because “WHY DO I NEED TO HEM IT IF IT’S JUST GOING TO GET DESTROYED AGAIN”)
Given the diplomatic duties and general “running around the galaxy, getting shot at” nature of the Jedi, I imagine there is a supply office, run by a quartermaster, where Jedi get fitted for robes. You grow out of them? Returned and reused by someone else. I like to imagine that styles and colours change over the years, but because the robes are always being recycled, this is why you get so many different “looks” to different Jedi (along with different styles and cuts depending on species, genders, and occupation).
They also have the standard two sizes: too big and too small, which explains Obi-Wan’s cloak in TPM.
I also like the idea that obi-wan actually fits the “too small” robe, but is either a) wearing a spare of qui-gons because his keep getting shredded or lost (the habit started early, okay) and the quartermaster won’t give him a new one until he proves he can care for it, or he pick it as a teenager in a desperate HOPE that he would grow into it. (Spoilers–he never does but he hangs onto it for Anakin)
But I’m over here still thinking about supply depots and stuff and it’s probably the job of someone (some group more like) in the Service Corp to help keep track of this and they’re doing paperwork and there’s a betting pool now in that section of the Corps about how long it will be before Kenobi puts in for ANOTHER fucking robe. And if that trait is going to rub off on his Padawan.
*nods*
I always figured it was the job of a subdivision of the Service Corp too. @jhaernyl actually had the brilliant idea of there being a Jedi Administrative Corps (the AdminCorps for short) that deals with all of the internal day-to-day bureaucratic issues: paperwork, budgeting, investing the Order’s funds, legal matters, ordering and organizing the production and distribution of food and cloth goods, hiring and training Temple workers, and so forth, and I’ve since more or less incorporated that into my headcanon.
And since the Jedi are very much into the communal thing, it makes perfect sense to me that outgrown robes would be passed around and reused. For some reason, I’ve always had it in my head that Jedi get their robes from the quartermaster/robe master/whomever, but that once they have them, they’re responsible for doing the bulk of their own mending and any special tailoring that they so desire (and possibly cleaning them too, but I tend to think that’s just an in-the-field type of thing).
Also: you can pry the headcanon of betting pools about when Obi-Wan is going to lose his next robe (and how many total robes he’s going to lose in a calendar year) from my cold dead hands. Personally, I think several Council members are secretly in on it… especially once Obi-Wan becomes part of the Council himself. I could have sworn I wrote a short little not-fic on this exact topic, in fact, but now I can’t seem to find it; bet it’s hiding somewhere deeeeep in my drafts folder lol.
I also headcanoned that the Corps and the Knights would have different buildings they lived on, while the Jedi Temple we see in the movie was more of an administrative / representative seat (and as to why they live and train padawans there, think of it as only the best of the best being housed and trained there, because that’s who you want any potential Senate visitor to see), commonly (and erroneously) known as the Jedi Districts and the Corps District (actually, they are the Knights Compound and the Jedi Compound, as all members of the Corps are Jedi they just are not Knights, but those names are long lost from vernacular language and are relegated to historical tomes that even in portable shape feel like you are lugging around something the size of a crate).
I’m bringing this up because in my idea of the Order (which has expanded to include Excel documents with formulas to calculate the size of an actual Galaxy-worth Order, with exceedingly low numbers that are still more reasonable than the canon ones) the Jedi were given air rights to the space above the original compounds as part of the Ruusaan Reformation deal (I play in Legends as a playground, let this be your warning) and so as Coruscant kept shooting up and up in the sky, so did their buildings.
And in the Jedi Compound / Corps District, that means you have hundreds of levels were all the kids who are not chosen to be padawans and are sent to the Agricorps are not only housed but also trained. How would you train them?
Why, by having artificial recreations of alien environments from planets where the Agricorps are a presence / were a presence with imported local fauna and flora, so that they can work up from the really easy worlds and chores to being able to deal with terraforming hostile places and bringing agriculture back even in desperate conditions.
(I have rules and stuff about how apprentiships in the Corps work and how 90% you start out Agricorps and then a lot of people join other branches and how they have their own name for apprentices that are not padawans and how they learn in group and — okay I will shut up and get back to the point).
That’s relevant to the discourse at hand because one of the side effects of this, is that the Jedi Compound / Corps District produces huge amounts of vegetables, meat and goods that are later prepared and distributed to the Knights Compound / Jedi District, the Temple and the various assistance centers that are disposed one every hundred levels or so on the lenght of the Jedi Compound / Corps District.
(Think of these centers as sort of a cross between a free medical center, a neutral ground, a shelter and a detox facility, as these are all services they offer; they basically are places where if you are in trouble or hurt or just you don’t have where to go for the night, you can check into [no questions asked] and get treated for whatever ails you and then drop your clothes, shower, get some warm food in you and sleep and then the next morning or, honestly, whenever you are able to leave under your own will, you can get your clothes back or choose between all the stores of clothes they have there, some of them donated and some of them left behind and a lot of them, not in any Jedi style but in contemporary or semi-contemporary very basic styles, provided by the AgriCorps).
So that’s where I headcanon the cloth and make of the Jedi clothes happens (I also headcanon each Corp as having their own style of robes that is relatively distinct and should help identify them or letting them identify each other) insofar as the Jedi on Coruscant are concerned. I also agree to the fact that each Jedi personalizes his or hers or hirs appearance as better suits them, but again they can request those materials from the AgriCorps and then either do the modification themselves (and thus learn to sew or carve or whatever) or ask someone in the Corps who has dedicated hirs, hers or his life to making clothes, because that is where the path that makes them happy lies, and thus they enjoy a challenge.
Steel Phoenix Studios 