Lore/Story The Fiosians Want Their Castle Back: A New Sellan History of Gavel

ne Fios il an ti Éllan d'Aensaure Sento:
N'ITAESSÉLL IXRE LUDIEHI​

Hi! I'm hmtn, and this is an AU timeline. It's a set of materials documenting the history of Gavel as seen through its dominant culture - the Sellans.

One might recognize this alternate name for the Villagers from the wonderful work of @Trashiejunkyard whence I borrowed it. But beyond that our two worldbuilding projects aren't connected to one another. I just thought that the name was nice. You might see other nods to Wartorn in this timeline, on occasion, but again they're just nods.

This timeline is a compilation of several different texts written by Corkian scholars, for typically human audiences. Most of the source materials were originally written in Modern Standard Sellan (Si'é Sélliesen), a common lingua-franca in Human-Sellan relations. However, I frequently used Corkish Fruman editions instead, as they often contained more explanations for various bits of jargon.

Also, this whole project started because of my conlanging, so I'll occasionally interrupt the timeline to talk about the languages. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ What can I say, I've got an interest.

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Table of Contents
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5: The Gathering of the Séll
These are only predictions. The list below is subject to change as new parts are posted.

1. The Gylian Anarchy (Below)
2. The Loss of Castle Fios
3. Blackfire Stoneheart
4. On Lords and Kings
5. The First Breath of Gavel
6. Jésen and its Dialects
7. On The Warring States
8. Seven Princes to Midnight
9. On the Two Gylias
10. An Komoscivanna
11. The Gathering of the Séll

6: Lords of Mace and Crown
[TBA]

7: The Return of the Prince
[TBA]

8: Grand Marshals of the Eastern Wind
[TBA]

9: The Seventh Sunset
[TBA]

10: Guardians of the Great Forge
[TBA]

11: Emperors from the Endless Lake
[TBA]

12: The Last Blueflower
[TBA]

Appendices:

• On Pronunciation & Romanization
• Aregindenna Siosaries, in the original High Gavellian

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- A Gal Liassin Siosfios -
THE GYLIAN ANARCHY​

I. In Medias Res (In the Middle of Things)
And the Elders were cast down, and so it was that, in their dying wrath, the splendors of the 4th Age would follow them. The Heart of the World would be forever lost, hidden and broken, remembered only in the hearts of Sellans and in scant drops of holy blood.

Regardless of the historicity of Sellan myth, it is undeniable that a great disaster befell the land, and that it was put to waste. In the heart of the Séll, what is now the lake-lands of Gylia (though it is said that the lakes had not been there before), the former slaves of the Elves descended into madness and barbarism. They were the best of Gavel.

The 5th Age would struggle to be born through centuries of such blood and strife. The exact length of this dark age is unknown, for all manner of writing and knowledge would disappear during the Gylian Anarchy. Traditionally, Sellan historians claim that all bonds of friend and family were shattered in an epoch of suffering.

However, it's important to remember that much of the historical record of the 5th Age was written and maintained by Comécivaen. The throne and its servants had great incentive to embellish the horrors of the time before imperial rule. "The empire may be harsh, and sometimes cruel," one could imagine a cleric saying, "but it is better than the alternative."

Yet even in the modern historical understanding, the devastation of the Gylian Anarchy is a matter of degree, not presence. For one, the concrete historical record of the Sellans only begins in its tail end. For another, these earliest written records from the Séll unanimously bear the perspectives of a people who have known suffering and strife for generations, a people who had known that the world before them was a greater place, a place that they would never see, a place that they pined for nonetheless.

II. Du Sipete Obiause (The Long Quiet)
The chaos of the transition would leave an unknown span of years between the Twilight of the Elves and a formal declaration of the 5th Age. Traditionally, Sellan historians label this intermezzo as part of the latter, numbering them as negative years of the 5th.

By this count, the oldest verifiable pieces of written Sellan records began to appear in the final century before 5A 1. The ornate alphabetic hand in which they were written was rarely named, but is called "High Elvish" when it was. However, the language that this script was used to write was not the High Elvish claimed by the south. The language, too, was unnamed, with Sellans referring to it at most as Inne Jésen, "Our Speech."

Its speakers regarded it as a broken, bastardized dialect of the High Elvish spoken by their former masters, a tongue also called Liesyu. Use of "proper" Elvish tongue - though not its writing - seemed considered beyond the pale by this time's residents of Gylia. Its speakers, and these earliest Sellan scribes, used their tongue to record what they regarded as a broken, bastardized imitation of governance in a world without Elvish rule.

III. On the Sogosellans
There was a notable exception to this trend, however. The mountains of Southern Gylia, long a stronghold of the Elders, remained home to a number of Sellans loyal to the Elves, no matter that the Elves had since been scoured from the world.

They maintained High Elvish, apart from their vernacular, and maintained the Elvish faith, which had been scorned by the other Sellans. They did not maintain an exceptional amount of lost knowledge, however, and their earliest records post-date those of their northern and eastern kin. These southern Elf-Friends called themselves the Anis, "Light-Fearers," while the rest would call them Sógosellan, "Mountain Civilized Folk," or Sogósellan, "Southern Civilized Folk," after the land in which they lived, which would be called Sogosell during the 5th Age.

IV. Nac Neure Du Possa (The Mortality of Mortality)
Regardless of tongue, the first records of Gylia, and Sogosell, and other lands where Sellans dwelt, would reveal lands of petty chiefdoms and clans. The Sellan world, in the tail end of the Gylian Cataclysm, would be dominated by fortified villages and strongholds, where dwelt a Lord and their clan, who commanded warriors and collected tax from the great mass of farmers in their dominion.

It was a quintessentially feudal system, albeit one not yet dominated by any great princes or kings. Instead, these petty fiefs engaged in constant low-level warfare with one another, and there was little difference between a petty lord and a bandit. Even the greatest landlords of this era could, it seemed, not guarantee defence against depredation, and great hosts tied to nothing would periodically ravage the Séll. Any great trade, or collection of wealth and knowledge, was nearly impossible.

For generations, this had been the world. It is no wonder that the Sellans of this time and the times that would follow would consider it a dark age.

But a dark age cannot last forever. These earliest records of the Séll describe conquest and consolidation. Petty chiefs became great chiefs, and then great lords, and then "princely" lords, called Ohariex, or "Prince."

V. On the Oldest Kanderites
During this time, Sellan culture would also spread north and west out of Gylia, into the Lands of the Stone-Folk, the modern regions of Kander and the Gel riverbasin. The land had yet to decay at this time, though it had also yet to see the full splendor of the Younger Elves. The Stone-Folk had not been nearly so ruined by the Twilight of the Elves as the Sellans had been, and it is said that they preferred to live simply, and in peace.

But then came the Sellans. By the end of the 5th Age, the Stone-Folk would be extinct as a culture, though much of their way, habits, and blood would survive in the north, among the Sellans of Kander. There was no single disaster that triggered their decline, and indeed the Kanderites (it is here noted that Kander was a late 5th age term for "stone") regard this substrate as their truest ancestors. They were Sellanized, yes, but they remained, and it would be foolish to say that they would not have their due by the end of the 5th Age.

With the alien faith of the Sogosellans in the south, and the distance of the new Kanderites in the north, the previously compact Séll of Gylia would become more stretched and distant than it had already been.

VI. Nildaxassin (On the Spirits and their Shamans)
The final critical piece of the Sellan world in the wake of the Gylian Anarchy would be its shamans, who at this time called themselves the Nildaxassin Order, though they were certainly not so organized. In later times, the Sellan priesthood would come to be called n'Auré. Though such a title is anachronistic for such an ancient time, it will be used for the remainder of this text for the sake of consistency.

The movement that would become n'Auré arose, it would seem, as a backlash to the Elvish faith that the lords of the 4th Age had imposed upon the Sellans. It held to many of the same precepts, but seemed to take great glee in tearing down the beloved icons of the fallen slave-masters.

ON, Lord of Light, the Great Influence, and Master of the Solar Vanguard, was cast from His lofty position atop the world. He was reduced to a hound, a beast, a servant of the Sellan powers, and would begin his thousand-year-march towards irrelevance in the mythology of the Séll.

Countless of those Sellan powers would rise to the fore of sacrifice and ritual. Llo Taextau, Égion-Ctein, Beloved Úx, the Thunder-Dragon Urssúr, and Drinoqu, and countless more. Many would rise and fall over the centuries, but as ON waned, a god here called Tfayl Guardian, or simply Tfayl, would gradually establish itself as peak of the Sellan pantheon.

Tfayl, who would eventually be declared a sole universal power, would dominate the monotheistic period of the late Imperial n'Auré, but by this early point had yet to even acquire the position of first-among-equals.

In truth, however, the spirits and gods worshiped by early 5th age Sellan shamans were not the main focus and impact of Sellan religion at this time.

Shamans were the closest thing to a universally-recognized and respected institution of the Séll during the Gylian Anarchy. Even in the south, where the Elvish faith lingered, these early priests were understood to command great and terrible power, and to have a destiny not beholden to the material world.

The shaman class of the early 5th Age, like n'Auré in the 6th, would go to great effort to keep all magical knowledge and ability constrained. For good reason, as well - was is not abuse of magic that held the Sellan people in bondage? Was it not the terrible magic of the corrupted Heart that drove the Elves to decay and ruin? Were there not countless tales, in ages even closer to the Dawn, of reckless sorcery bringing great disaster?

For reasons both religious and very practical, Sellans held and would continue to hold a very dim view of magic, the broad populace thinking it good riddance that it was held under strict lock-and-key by the shamans of the Séll. This would eventually come to pierce n'Auré like a the horn of a Toruto, but not for some time.

No, in this time, the shamans were a neutral, powerful, independent, and highly mobile social class of the Séll. It's unclear when merchant caravans first drew close to them for safety, but it's clear that, by the end of the Gylian Anarchy, the lines between cleric, messenger, and merchant had become so thin as to be effectively erased.

VII. Na Tiure Aneche (On The Coming Days)
The temporal lords and princes were not idle while n'Auré waxed in strength. They continued to feud, and war, conquer one another, and build the earliest states of recorded Sellan history. The Gylian Anarchy came to an end not with a bang, but with a gradual consolidation of the first two Great Estates of the Séll.

The nobility and clergy would be the only two of the Great Estates to form during the 5th age. Their increasing size, power, and cohesion would eventually begin to raise a thought, here and there: Was one of them to unify the Séll? Which?

 

Woah this is awesome! Do you have a description/write up on the language or it’s grammar?

btw if you weren’t aware, there happens to be a relatively active conlanging community in the wynncraft discord (in large part because of the translation work towards Tahkashtel).

 

Thank you! I'll certainly be going into bits of how the languages function here and there, but they're not intended to be the main attraction. I'll leave the detailed writeups for a separate time/document.

For now, I'll note that, while we're in the 5th age, the language used for titles and such (like the ones in the first chapter) will be in Jēsen, which will gradually become the main prestige tongue of the era. We'll see the exact circumstances of that in the next few chapters. If you know of an Ancient vs. High Gavellian distinction, then Jēsen is on the Ancient side of that, though it's nowhere near the oldest strain of Gavellian. Think of it as a transitional stage, simultaneously an Ancient and High Gavellian.

As we enter the 6th age, we'll be transitioning to d'Inlya. It's a related language, and the dialect of High Gavellian preferred by the Sellan monarchy. The title at the very top of this thread is in d'Inlya; it's the "main" HG of the timeline. Any time I refer to "High Gavellian" without qualification in this thread, I'm probably referring to d'Inlya. Jēsen is solid, but d'Inlya is one of the most detailed languages I've ever made, as well as my favourite, so maybe we'll see more details then.

Oh, I'm aware :-) I've always been kind of tangential to that community (I've been gone too long), but CT's work and the community's effort to translate it is inspiring, and part of what kept me so invested in this project for all this time. We've made it! I'm so very happy.

 

hmtn! i havent even read it yet but im so excited

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I love the interpretation that Qira named the Vanguard specifically to piss off religious folks

LANGUAGES? no wonder this has been in the works for so long, you made a full fledged continent with hundreds of years of history and all that entails
I'm very excited for what's to come, and this section was great.

 

I. Thsoliäch Thou (The Place of the Departure)
The northernmost fief of the Elf-Friends was called Fios, named so after the castle and family at its heart. Fios's holdings sat on the middle stretches of what is now called the River Suvaoch, though it was called Aldóron until the early 6th age.

As the name implies, the Aldóron flowed north from the old stronghold of the Elves, both Elder and Younger, spilling out into Gylia and ultimately emptying into the region's namesake lake. Castle Fios was built at the very northern end of Sogosell, in a place where the land's mountains were few, in a place only a handful of leagues south of where the river became wide and meandering, as it entered the Gylia plains proper.

Naturally, their fief made for a popular river-crossing, especially once they built a bridge to ford the Aldóron. This brought the House of Fios much wealth and power, power that they would use to lay their enemies low and exert influence over their neighbours.

It would be vital that they did so. As mentioned earlier, Fios was the northernmost fief controlled by a house of Elf-Friends, thanks to their connection to Sogosell proper upriver. The immediate neighbors of Fios were loyal children of the Séll, one and all, and looked upon the Lords of the River-Toll with barely-disguised contempt. It was, in fairness, a rather steep toll, but perhaps the records indicating as much were biased.

Even the clergy were forced to pay the toll, for they were not the clergy of Fios, and much of the fief's peasantry were Elf-Friends of the north who had fled to this last lonely castle of Sogosell. Thus it was that the town of Fiosqa was built on the western side of the bridge, and thus it was that it would develop a reputation for apostasy towards the Séll, and of unfriendliness to n'Auré.

The feeling was mutual. Though the House of Fios was forced to tolerate the presence of good Sellans, as well as of their ilk upon their fief, they would not forget that these were the people who had laid ON low, and who had slaughtered the Elves, who had laid low the Nightbringer and justly ruled for a thousand years¹.

In the entire history of the Séll, no house would spawn more myths and legends than Fios, nor more notorious figures². But the Lords of the Toll were not yet so great a house, nor would they be, not for quite some time. That in mind, here is the first great tale in the Matter of the West,

- Aegila du Thios Ellan a Siure -
THE LOSS OF CASTLE FIOS
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On one day, of the first days of the Séll, of the last days of the blood-before-the-blood, the House of Fios came to be ruled by the Lord Orisefutisre. He was a weak and capricious fool, squandering the efforts of his ancestors. He spent their gathered coin like water. He wasted the lives of his servants and slaves, and the grain of his peasants on excessive feasting. With no thought, he would give his time and emerald to matters beneath a Lord.

Begged by his advisors to show prudence, he instead raised the tolls upon his bridge, but all this did was run dry his mine of traders. When faced with a treasure from the west, a great medallion of fire, he threw it to his concubine, in full view of the gift-giver. When faced with a treasure from the east, a lyre of the Vindals, and a woman who could play it, he treated her as a minstrel, and forced her to play the songs of her people only as mockery and humiliation.

Thus it was that the House of Fios came to be despised by its people, for they had instead given their love to the dead and accursed. This debauchery and mockery of navoyl was to be their price, but it would be no punishment without a judge.

The reckoning of the Lord Fios began the day that he personally insulted a sage of the faith, forcing him to bow and scrape before a temporal lord for passage. News of this humiliation soon passed to his closest vassals of Fios, pious children of the Séll, who heard this and knew that they could no longer abide the madness and barbarism of their liege.

Rallied by Lord Kaencollva Xintiuch, among the strongest of the Fiosian banners, they marched to their stronghold to do away with the Elf-Friends. The son of Lord Orisefutisre, also called Orisefutisre, and sometimes Stargazer, plead with the banners from the ramparts of Castle Fios. In doing so, he nearly lost his life.

Though Orisefutisre the Younger had assumed it would come to siege, his Lord father instead wished to destroy enemies in the field. His enemies, who outnumbered them ten-fold. Thus it was that Orisefutisre the Younger knew that Fios was lost. The castle, the fief, the last senses of his father.

As he secreted away in the night, the last of the Fios-in-Fios gazed back upon the castle, and saw that his father had opened the gates, and saw the fire, and heard the screaming of Sellans. He laid a curse, then, upon the entire line of Kaencollva, such that they would forevermore know misfortune, struggle, and exile, as they had brought onto him with this treachery.

For a moment, Orisefutisre (no longer the Younger, for he knew his father was to be dead by morning) was faced with a choice. Should he go south? No, not if he wished for Fios to survive. To the masses of Elf-Friends in Sogosell, Fios was little better than their apostate banners.

East, then? Orisefutisre had heard tell, from many, that the eastern mountains were home to a witch of great power, who could grant almost any wish, if at a ruinous price. But Orisefutisre did not know what, exactly, the witch could take from him.

III. Ac Och Atiotier (The First Exile)
Orisefutisre, along with the few Sellans he could trust, traveled north along the eastern banks of the river, making towards the river-marches of the Greatest Lake. They passed through the lands of strange peoples, with strange dress, customs, and manners of speech. They did not pass in peace, not quite, but it was not a time of great strife. Twenty Sellans were enough to appear a danger to bandits and a curiosity to lords.

For weeks, they rounded the lake, eventually passing into the Lands of the Vara. There, the curiosity of the south (for the Lords of Iron had never before seen Sogosellans) entertained the court for several weeks, and Orisefutisre began to understand the heart of the Lady of the Lyre, who had played in his father's court.

They passed further to the east, beyond the bounds of the Séll, through the gates of Thianus and into the lands of the Dwarves. They saw few, on their journey, for the Dwarves were ever-reclusive and mistrustful, and no friends to the Sogoséll. Instead, their party made merry with a band of Hobgoblins, with whom they defeated the dread Goliath Pret-Paokorh, and who bestowed upon Orisefutisre an enchanted dagger³.

Finally, they came to the north-east, home of the Witch. It was a dark place, a cave in a canyon, and Orisefutisre dismounted his horse, and bade his Sellans to wait outside. He had been made to know that he must enter alone.

A great spider laid in wait, guardian of the cave. If not for the flames of his dagger, Orisefutisre would not have survived the hour. Traveling deeper into the cave, he finally fell into its heart. There, he found a still pool, and a woman, once again strumming the lyre that she had played in his father's court.

"Rin Pondaur," said Orisefutisre, and the Witch agreed, for she had seen his heart, and the heart of his family, and had watched him slay her guardian, and was in the mood to strike him down. Instead, she asked him what her price would be, for strength and treasure to restore his House.

"I know not the limits of your power, but I offer everything," said Orisefutisre. "Everything I have left. I know that is not much, but I will even offer my life, should it return Fios to glory."

And Orisefutisre beheld the Witch, truly, for the first time. And the Witch smiled. It was not a kind smile.

IV. Aregindenna Siosaries (To Curse A Fool)

​

"You seek a way to return to Séll⁴. I am She Who Is The Way, and the affairs of your house are not beyond my power, for very little is. I remember you, Stargazer, and your kindness, and do not blame you for the foolishness of your father, but I must blame your house."

"I shall not destroy you today, Stargazer, for you are yet to make good on your name, nor shall I destroy your house, which is forfeit to me, and yet to fulfill my purpose."

And she said "I shall curse you, and your line."

"So long as you wish Fios to see the next dawn, you and your line are exiled from Levtus. Thus it will be that but one of your line shall ever again sit the throne your father lost. They shall die, on that day, upon that seat, and so shall end the line of Fios."

Then it was that she gave to Stargazer three small stones, hewn from the blood of the First Dragon. They were to be the seal of her curse. So long as House Fios held at least one, its power would linger upon the Séll.

"Should you wish to lay down my curse, and return to the whims of fate unknown: Cast them aside! Cast them into flame, sky, and lake. Cast them to the places of their birth, for it is where they dearly wish to return, and to properly Decay. They will leave you, if you do not guard them, and guard them jealously. "

And Orisefutisre looked at the three gems, dark and red and clotted, each the size of his thumb-nail, and understood her curse. That he would never again see his home. That he would never again see his old bed, or the people of Fiosqa, or the hills and walls on which he played, or the river bank where he sat and smoked. He would never again lay eyes on the grave of his mother, nor the mockery given to his father, and he would never sit upon the throne that had been his birth-right.

The tolls that had made his House rich were forever closed to him, and to all of his line. He would never live to see the traitor House Kaencollva brought to heel. And yet, if he but kept three stones, his line would become immortal. He shed three tears, each of blood, which landed atop them, and burned the stones, and burned his hand black.

"Good boy," said the Witch. "But that was my price for Fios, not Stargazer. My price for you shall be so: Your line shall also be mine."

Thus it was that the two were wed, and that House Fios returned to the west in blood and witch-flame, and the daughter of Orisefutisre and the Witch would become the Lord of the South, first Prince of Sogosell, and that their fortunes would greatly wax. When she was ready, Orisefutisre would surrender his throne, and with his wife return to the East. They were never seen again.

V. On the Historicity of this Tale
Though held up as sacrosanct in Lleva, and so unfortunately in Wynn as well, the Matter of the West is well understood to be primarily mythological.

We live in an age of reason, and science. All known principles of temporal magic involve real presence in potential time-lines, and the runic matrices and power sources required to fuel them are steep in cost. No Sellan of the early 5th age could command such power and knowledge, regardless of the Fiosian delusion that they had such a mighty figure in their bloodline. Do they not already have enough of those?

It is the opinion of most of Gylia, as well as this author, that while House Fios was betrayed by their bannermen, and forced out from their original fief (principle of embarrassment), they managed to escape with much of their wealth and resources. Perhaps after an extended campaign, they would eventually regroup in a southern holding, where they would continue their waxing and consolidation. The historical records of any of the regions that Orisefutisre Stargazer passed through never mention such a distinctive party of Sogosellans, and no records in South Gylia describe a dramatic, sudden reappearance of House Fios, simply a gradual swelling of power in their southern holdings.

The House Fios experiencing a loss of their northern, river-tolling fief, surrounded by adherents of a hostile religion, and re-consolidating in the south is a much simpler story than that of a strange woman, simultaneously living in a cave and Castle Fios, distributing prophetic bloodstones. The latter is no basis for any serious historical analysis.

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Author's Notes
1. Or more. The timeline is rather hazy in the wake what Mage Island is nowadays telling us was a freak meteor bombardment. Don't take this at face value, they change their leading theory every six months.
2. Save perhaps Dulia.
3. The Stargazer's Blade (av Elléx Tiesaurjes do Vuebxenhi) was a real piece of Fiosian regalia throughout the 5th and early 6th ages. However, it would be lost during the second of Eilya's Desolations.
4. This term is often translated as "Village," but usually doesn't refer to a literal village, which is instead a small Séllqa (lit. Séll-Settlement). For more information regarding the nature of Séll, see "The Sellan Monomyth," by Kalagan Hast.
5. "Qira" in d'Inlya, though note that this is anachronistic, as d'Inlya didn't yet exist. Due in part to this tale, and tales like it, "Qira" is a stock character in Sellan culture. A woman given the pseudonym 'Qira' is a witch of unknown name and terrible power. The moniker has been given to multiple historical individuals fitting the archetype, including several specifically resident in the western Canyon.

Translator's Notes
I lied! The title for Part I is in High Elvish (Liesyu), the High Gavellian language preferred by the Elf-Friends of the 5th age. I figured it was fitting. Liesyu is related to Jēsen, but not actually very closely! It's the final fruit of a whole mess of 4th age Elvish dialects that stopped being relevant when the Aldór got collectively murked as a civilization. The Sellans... will not be apologizing for that. Actually, it didn't even happen. It's myth. But if it wasn't, then they deserved it.

I've mentioned this on and off in other places, but please don't take anything that the Sellans say about themselves or anyone else at face value. Despite living on a continent with (neo)-Elves, they're the true centre of Gavellian arrogance and disdain. Seriously, it's like a compulsion for them.

 

Qira's a widow
Wait
That's actually quite fitting
Double meanings, am I right?

 

;-)
fun fact: eight is the main number associated with "death/danger/misfortune" in sellan culture. triple threat

Keep in mind that this is obvious fiction, though, even from an in-setting perspective. As well as that the title "Qira" is going to get applied to multiple witches of wildly varying appearance and behavior, over millennia. They're not all the same person. Probably. Hopefully.

 

Extra Translator's Notes
​

On Pronunciation
The title of this thread is written in d'Inlya, but d'Inlya has a very... out of date spelling system. In a lot of ways, it's still pretending that it's Jésen, despite the centuries-long gap between the two languages. According to the Standard Form of High Gavellian promulgated by Her Majesty¹, A.A. Nerari III Cadan, the title Ne Fios il an ti Éllan d'Aensauve Sento: n'Itaeséll Ixre Ludiehi² is properly pronounced as—

[n̩ˈvjəs il ɑ̃.tjeˈʒɑ̃ dɛ̃ˈsov ˈsɛ̃t]
[ni.tæˈseɬ iˌk͡xe lu.ðeˈi]

If you can't read IPA, here's an IPA reader link that I feel didn't mess up too badly, and here are consonant and vowel soundboards for any letters you might not recognize. A tilde above a vowel means that it's nasalized, as in Portuguese direção.

A scuffed anglicization might look something like:

enviOUS eel auntie yay JAUNE dense OAV SENT.
need 'ta SESH eeKAY loo they EE.

While the pronunciation of various words and sentences is a fun tidbit, and I might give them in translator's notes like this one, they're generally not all too important. Thanks to some poor decisionmaking on the part of future generations, various strains of High Gavellian are usually read as if written in the speaker's native language, which means that your first-blush pronunciation of any provided text is accurate to real Sellan practice.

High Gavellian, especially d'Inlya, is a written language far moreso than it is a spoken one. Speaking is left to the various Low Gavellians, which, conversely, are basically never written down.

On Romanization
I've also made the decision not to romanize the letter Laenhi using the traditional acute accent when transcribing Jésen names. The letter didn't yet exist, and its presence to indicate long vowels is a retroactive choice used by more contemporary scribes. Romanization of Laenhi will continue for names and materials from more modern times, such as in the name n'Auré and of the language itself.

Contemporary spelling conventions, such as HRC, Kaande letter-doubling, and Laenhi itself, will be introduced to chapters around the time of their invention. As spelling standards freeze into place, we'll gradually approach the frozen Cadan-form H.G. of the title, at which point neither I nor the Sellans will ever update our spelling again.

Tolkien is rolling in his grave, I know, but the linguistic aspects of this project are supposed to be front-and-center, so I feel that it would be fitting for the text to reflect real changes in how people write.

Naturally, all writing is done not in the Latin alphabet, but in the High Gavellian one which through a freak accident of nature held a 1:1 correspondence to Latin for a brief period during the late 4th age. Thanks to Sellan writing trying to copy this epoch for an unreasonably long time, this leads to easy transcription for much of the 5th age, but things will eventually fall apart.

Time will see the introduction of new letters and ligatures, such as Laenhi, as well as spelling practice informed by Gavel alone, such as 〈kv〉 becoming read as /f/, 〈w〉 as /b/, 〈c〉 being conditionally read as /x/ (an h-like sound, if you're unfamiliar with IPA), and so on. This isn't even taking into account ridiculous historical elements of scribal shorthand, such as the d'Inlya indefinite article 〈K〉 being pronounced [ɑ̃], but scribal shorthand will not be transliterated³.

Sellan orthography through and after the 6th age is a mess. Continuing to faithfully transcribe Gavellian words with an archaic Latin-cipher transliteration instead of a more convenient up-to-date romanization is a convenient way to convey the pain of someone trying to become literate in a Sellan language, e.g. 〈sieihírysieim〉 [ʃi:ˈʃiɲˤ] she-ee-SHEEN.

n'Extra Notes Some Notes:
1. No, not that other one.

2. In short form, I'll probably be referring to this text as either n'Itaesséll Ixre Ludiehi / d'Ixre Ludiehi or The New (Sellan) History (of Gavel). The word Itaesséll, best translated as "Sellan Gavel," is a distinctly archaic/poetic name for (the portion of) the continent (dominated by the Séll), in the same way that Britain is sometimes called Albion, or Japan is called Yamato. You'd be surprised at just how recent the name "Gavel" is.

3. While fully-accurate historical transliteration might be fun for some, and while I do think that it's rather neat, no sane reader deserves to be subject to AI: TO· ACO· HINEIN· EFRE· ED: INLYA· NOETA·· A: T· S: VAMFE: NEYLOS· C: FIU˦FREN: NOTIO: EQUO·· for who-knows-how-long.

 

Heads-up: the intro-to-Kander chapter's halfway done, but most of my time and effort this week is going into translating chapter 2-IV into d'Inlya for the wynnfair art contest. If you like what I'm doing here, and if you can, make sure to vote for my submission in #your-work on Saturday!

 

Extra Notes: Aregindenna Siosaries, in the original High Gavellian
The images in this thread will probably break, eventually. I'll be on these forums until the sun goes out, though, so if you're reading this in the future & they're broken, feel free to DM me.





Romanized
​

"Qo qira do pe séll om aensaure narsu. Cin Qira cin. Pe flarniesi wredear si'l al do cin navoyl. Nes hi neti'l. Iten-pa, d'Elléx Tiesaur Jes, pe vílan-alló. Oŕa do pe siausre mosu, cin ne per si fachachr. Laquenna cin d'asna an pe flarniesi fachachr."

"Inca ti'l-a Hinnein si craôae-pa, d'Elléx Tiesaur Jes. Qira'l-a si cê rio ne pe jes esse si nelyos sofur. Aco Hinnein cin pe flarniesi si craôae-alló. Fi cin flasuen si neylos sial."

Ta tauch a "Cin do pe mosu ludiehi per-alló régeinden" rell.

"S'ix ti'l-a e-pe ne Fios távas om notio a ixre énteite tiesaur, le av Levtus eison thios-pe do pe mosu ludiehi-alló. Inca ti'le-a av do pe mosu ludiehi laqu kom qa do pe mosu egil a sial vra nalle nalle cho-il. Haci a nein pau tral. Qa a vra nalle pau tral. Inca lihla ne Fios mosu ludiehi."

Inca ti'l-a tauch e ne hivra er fonn d'Elléx Tiesaur Jes soc. Orgin-te av Och Rudomaessa ne flrausvraere. d'Er ti régeinden egilae. Qira e ne Fios Flarniesi laqu kom s'ix távas, do ti ëiqruven la haci séll neylos ané.

"Ti'l-a per do sento cin régeinden agrae, ta ne si son sil do notiohi ixre téch? Iteiyl-ti! An ctén afae-alló lyae-alló iteiyl-ti. An do ti venaci do sento an aquto ozi iteilye soson nilaesae-alló. Le qira per si lon navoyl tau egil-ti ne per tiéba."

Inca Auvréfutire ne tiúonve fonn tiesaur. Tauch ne laurí vaer-alló, ta ne flrausvraere ozi tion. Inca Auvréfutire ti régeinden xaete pete. Tauch veci s'ei vamfe ixre tiesaur ti dejan xaete pete. Sifi ti joll tion ulnos ixre tiesaur, sifi ne Fiosqa jes, sifi haci tauch llo raum séllhi-alló paute, sifi tiovu tauch nalle ctét-alló aurdaex onre, sifi av do ti mosu do pau baurdae ixre tiesaur, sifi av do ti siausre mosu do soc eison suhsoiésen. Ta tauch av do ti ludiehi do vra nalle tau s'ei vamfe náva cho-il.

Isha tiure wrede e vrar ti flarniesi soc la ór tauch do ti mosu ludiehi-alló tiéba. E-ti relle tau s'ei vamfe távas av Kaencollva nilaes flarniesi sac hrauhariéx. Laquenna ti'l-a qira tauch ne laque er fonn egilae, do ti mosu ludiehi la ne s'ix neylos inlya teitae. Tauch n'uwési fonn lan. n'Uwési'l ne flrausvraere. Il q'er aegaeo-ti. Tauch d'er, ta lon trach do ti llue ctét.

Qira Bax Jes rell "Hi sieihírysieim. Laquenna a-ti'l cin ne Fios xaútrenaquo, si'l n'Elléx Tiesaur Jes. Oŕa per ne cin xaútrenaquo'l inca: Do pe mosu ludiehi d'asna zinae."

Inca ti'l-a do ti lyarni ne kuomuen teite. Ne Fios flarniesi haci sellae lon bax ctén flrausvraere-alló ixre tral. Ne Bax Jes Auvréfutire-alló do vekom jes il ne Sogauton Flarulle ta ne Sogauséll d'Auch Auhariex. Ti wrede chipissau do sollu sial. Flarlye tauch n'iosieure na, Auvréfutire e thios ti vra nalle soc. Tauch lon dejan jes an pogauone ixre tral. Tau s'ei vamfe narsu-ti.

Translation (Gloss)

Spoiler: One

Spoiler: Two

Spoiler: Three

Spoiler: Four

Spoiler: Five

Spoiler: Six

Spoiler: Seven

Spoiler: Eight

Spoiler: Nine

Spoiler: Ten

—
​

Words that are still at least somewhat recognizable from when FinnDestren gave them to me:

• Basic grammar particles: an and ne are (orthographically) unchanged. On the way from Jésen to d'Inlya, du became do, while or became ór, though the latter is word-not-appearing-in-this-translation. However, derived particle oŕa does appear.
• The name Orisefutisre, which corresponds to Auvréfutire in d'Inlya, incorporates the Jésen word ori, "moon."
• Jésen copula nai~naj was reduced to d'Inlya na. The latter appears one (1) time in this translation, near the end, as a deranked nonfinite. The finite copular predication situation in d'Inlya is beyond repair.
• The initial vowel in Jésen der, "stone," got confused for the definite article in 5th Age Gylian, hence its appearance as er in the above translation.
• Don't ask me how Jésen vamore "strong" contributed to the d'Inlya intensifier vamfe, though what few notes from 2023 I can piece together suggest that it was the major ancestor.
• The colour black, trach, appears once, in all its archaic glory. Red, vaer, underwent the more expected [a] > [æ~ε] shift from Jésen var.
• The number three, fonn, remains orthographically unchanged between Jésen and d'Inlya, though this is a fossilized, irregular spelling in the latter.
• Finally, the indefinite article om is descended from kom, "one," hence why it's still spelled as 〈K〉 in scribal shorthand, as well as when using letters as numerals.

—

Blackfire Stoneheart is still only about halfway done. I'll be back to working on that, now.
​

 

- Trachcten Derexir -
BLACKFIRE STONEHEART
​

I. Ne Du Derium​

In the fourth age, in the time before the Sellans came northward out of Gylia, there dwelt in the land now-called Kander a people who were, it is said, not born of the union between two parents, but shaped by magics. In its tongue, the Séll named them Deries, "Stone-Folk," for they were drawn from the earth itself, hewn by shamans and sages in the dark of the hills, sculptors freeing form from rock. Then their Lord and God came among them, and It breathed into the stone a fiery spark, and the Stone-Folk rose and lived as Its servants.

But that is the mythological account. Historians have sharply differing views regarding the true nature of the Stone-Folk. Certainly, they were not Sellans. The Sellans of the ancient era so far discussed have a concrete origin in the Gylia region, and their earliest records, with which we have concerned ourselves, describe the Stone-Folk as a people entirely alien to the Séll.

One major issue is that the Stone-Folk left behind no writing, at least none that can be deciphered. They are known through art, and through pottery and sculpture that exceeded any Sellan work of the time. But writing, as introduced to the Sellans via the Elves, seems to have either eluded or been eschewed by their culture.

Our picture is thus almost entirely filtered through the perspective of Sellans, writing in Jésen, as they expanded northwest from Gylia in the early fifth age, as well as in the stories and myths that too often serve as our only window into the mythic past of Gavel.

As previously noted, the name “Stone-Folk” was not a metaphor; it was widely believed that their bodies were literally shaped from the earth. This was unlike the Elves, Dwarves, and Vindals, who were recognizably the same species as the Sellans (if warped by magics, in the case of the Elves).

Any historian with more than three or so brain cells¹ will immediately draw parallels to the Doguns. They, unlike the Stone-Folk, survived into much clearer historical attestation. That the mysterious Stone-Folk were simply a far-flung western population of Doguns – prevalent during the Dawn-Ages, but doomed to fade just as their eastern cousins – is so clean a theory that many of our profession stop there and pay the topic no further mind.

Unfortunately, the theory runs into some issues under closer scrutiny. For one, Kander and the Molten Heights are wildly different environments. To accept this theory is to accept that a large group of Doguns were willing to settle in the cold, damp west for an unknown period of time, during which they left little sign of the traditional Dogun habit of constructing stone mega-structures, and seem to have limited themselves to a few small statues.

Second, the Doguns, rather famously, were among the first peoples in Gavel with an attested writing system. No trace of that system, nor anything close to resembling it, has ever been found in Kander.

Third, the Stone-Folk were not the first people whom Sellan writers described in such lurid terms. The Vindals and Dwarves, two peoples physically indistinguishable from Sellans, were also described as hewn from stone, and the latter were said to be tremendously short and squat², molded so by their underground haunts, which they carved in the same way as the Doguns. Naturally, none of this is true.

Fourth, Sellans and Stone-Folk would have children with one another constantly during the fifth age, as the former came north from Gylia. Local contemporary sources make no mention of a literal stone appearance, or of their being a different species. Simultaneously, more distant sources in Sogosell and the Canyon Marches continued to describe them as literally fashioned from stone.

Finally, the Sellanization of the Stone-Folk was such a gradual process that “Deries” remains a poetic name for the people of Kander to this day, a people who regard the Stone-Folk as a core element of their ancestry. All this in mind, it seems that the Stone-Folk were an ordinary Selloform cultural group, one that had the same exaggerated tales told about it as all distant peoples. It seems that the only difference between them and, say, the Vindals, is that the latter survived long enough to become fully mundane to the Séll.

One might try to make a sixth point: The God of the Doguns, Garaheth, was physically present to rule over his servants in the east as a despot, and was never recorded blazing a route halfway across the continent to animate a population of Doguns in the middle of nowhere in Western Gavel.

But every surviving record makes clear that the fell God of the Stone-Folk was not Garaheth.

II. ONOC​

While its true name, as transmitted by the Elves, was "Onokthu," it was and remains more popular to call this god by the title Nightbringer³. Where it is still revered in the north, it eventually became syncretized to the Sellan hearth-fire spirit Égion-Ctein. But this was never a complete merger, and Kanderites can still be found insisting their separate nature to this day.

To the Elves, and to many traditionalists of Séll, the term "god" might be a bit inaccurate, if not profane. Traditional teachings of both Séll-friends and Elf-friends held that the Nightbringer was a terrible demon, a harbinger of darkness and evil, who ruled much of the land with a black hand of terror during the third age. They teach that the Nightbringer was only barely defeated, but even then survived in Its Heart-poison, which destroyed the Elves and brought the world one age closer to nightfall.

The Stone-Folk, and their descendants through which they speak, would counter that the Nightbringer was a god of life, and fire, servant of the worldly master, who had been placed there to create Its children and protect the last world⁴ from the terrors that would seek to worm inside and break it apart.

The Séll-friends, and the Elf-friends, would both reply that the Stone-Folks's god was named "The Nightbringer⁵," and that it was the Stone-Folk who gave It that name. The fact that their northern neighbors worshiped the literal Demon of Black Fire, a great villain for a great swathe of Sellan mythology, was, if not an impetus for Sellan expansion into the north, certainly a powerful justification.

III. An Der Aros​

It would only be natural that the Sellans of Gylia would seek to escape from the chaos of the Anarchy. The main barrier to this escape was hydrological.

Central Gavel is dominated by the Lake Gylia watershed. The lake (though it is more of an inland sea) occupies a large endorheic basin, its feeder rivers entirely disconnected from the great basin of the Gel and Sage that so dominated the western half of the continent.

Hence, while Sellan expansion along the river systems inside Gylia was simple enough, connection to the north and west, to the lands of the Stone-Folk, involved difficult and expensive portages, nearly impossible to sustain in the chaos of the Gylian Anarchy.

For those who nonetheless wished to cross the hydrological divide, there were two options, both rivers that neared the Gel (the great river of the Stone-Lands). The first was the Trach River (“Trach” meant “Black” in the tongue of the Stone-Folk, and soon in Jésen as well), which for two main reasons proved a poor choice for expansion and settlement.

The first reason was that, as the name implied, it was a blackwater river, fed by a great marsh in the southeastern Stone-Lands. This left it short of sediments and of the nutrients that typically fed fisheries, and made it an especially poor navigable waterway. The second was that the marsh made the river’s course unstable: in wet years it spread across the lowlands into a dozen shifting channels, and in dry years it shrank to shallows no vessel of trade could pass.

While the zone of water-mixing where it spilled into Lake Gylia was highly productive and heavily settled, the population density dropped off a cliff as one went upriver. The Black River became a boggy mess long before it drew near any serious tributaries of the Gel. Nobody wanted to manage portage in a swamp.

Little wonder, then, that the northern of the two rivers was vastly preferred for transportation of people and goods between Gylia and the lands of the Stone-Folk. Though the river was shorter than the Black River, its origin in nearby mountains made it swifter, and it carried down great quantities of sediment and nutrients, making the land on its banks incredibly attractive to farmers.

It flowed through much firmer land and, before reaching its head of navigation, came within a day’s portage of a large lake that fed the Gel. It is no wonder that this northern river was called Ac An Der Cosol, or “The River-to-Stone,” among the Sellans. This name would quickly simplify into the “Ander River,” and the territory around its banks duly came to be known as the Ander.

While the south and east raced towards unification, the lands around the Ander would know the chaos and fragmentation of the Gylian Anarchy for decades longer. No one clan, village, or family came to rule the entire stretch of the Ander, but petty analogues of great houses would eventually distinguish themselves as the five paramounts of the north.

In order of might and influence, they were the House of Ros, which controlled the outlet of the Ander into Lake Gylia, followed by the House of Enos, which similarly controlled the best portage to the Gel and the lands of the Stone-Folk. Along the river, between those two, sat the Houses of Borda, Xir, and Tiequax.

Though the great and petty houses of the Ander warred and feuded constantly, they were one and all weaker than the greatest house of the Stone-Folk, the House of Garatrach, which was, in the eyes of the Sellans, more a miniature Séll of its own than a traditional noble house. The Garatrach controlled the Gel-side of the portage between the two watersheds, and constantly feuded with the House of Enos as a result, as well as with the fiefs downstream along the Ander as it attempted to spread its influence towards the east.

Tolerating the Nightbringer’s brood was anathema to the children of Séll who made their home upon the Ander, and a bleak camaraderie would eventually emerge. Like clockwork, though clocks did not yet exist, armies of the Stone-Folk would smash into the fief of Enos and attempt to push towards Gylia, and like clockwork would the five paramounts of the north bind themselves together in a lordly alliance to push them back.

There is no record of how many times the land suffered such an invasion during the Gylian Anarchy, but as the period neared its end it was so predictable as to be natural to the Sellans of the Ander, and so inevitable that the question began to be raised: Why had nothing yet been done about the Garatrach?

The answer, in short, was a lack of unity. The moment each invasion was beaten back, the League of the Ander – called at this time Siunlre, and later Siýnolr – would disband and return to fratricidal squabbling. Without the threat from the west, they simply saw no reason to strike farther than the fief of Enos.

In the end, there would not come one reason but three, back to back to back.

First, the winters of the north. For several years, in rapid succession, the harvests along the Ander failed. The river froze early and thawed late. There were not enough seeds for the next year, let alone to feed the peasantry, and no amount of fish from Lake Gylia could make up for the shortfall.

As their granaries emptied, the lords of the Ander found their people drifting north and west, towards the lands of the Stone-Folk. The holdings of the Garatrach, heathen yet bountiful, began to look less like an unacceptable emergence from Séll and more like Séll itself.

The second cause was the Garatrach themselves. After generations of raiding, and at the moment of the Ander lords’s greatest weakness, they did not invade. Records and testimony from traders and travelers reported consolidation. The Garatrach were quarrying stone and felling timber. Their march-lands near the Séll were becoming populated not by warriors but by families. The Garatrach were not raiding the Ander; they were building a road into it. A raid must end, but the same is not true of an invasion.

The third cause was a voice. In the second winter of the famine, a priest living on the lands of Xir began to make herself heard in the market-villages along the river. Her name was Kabax, and she preached that the harsh winters were no accident; they were the breath of the Nightbringer, she said, whose brood grew fat in the west while the children of the Séll starved. The walls rising on the portage belonged to It, a grasping hand raised to the neck of the Ander.

Kabax was a shaman, and cleric. She held no land and commanded no Sellans. In the darker days of the Anarchy, she would have had little bearing on greater events, and the lords of the Ander surely wished it to stay that way. But n’Auré was ever beloved by the people, and the people were cold and hungry. They would listen to anyone who could tell them why and point them at the enemy, and the lords, too, would listen.

The House of Xir came first, naturally, then Borda and Tiequax, then Enos, which had the most to lose from the new posturing of the Garatrach, and last Ros, which would join only when it became clear that now was the hour of Siunlre, and that its neighbors would march without it.

Whatever the truth of Kabax’s claims, the effect was plain. For the first time in recorded history, the League of the Ander did not gather to repel an invasion, nor would it disband at the end of the season. The great levies of the basin were gathered, and from the Séll beyond came as many great figures from across the shores of Gylia as had heard tell of potential glory. Soon, they would march west.

IV. Raamb Indošeq Ngarètrach​

The campaign that followed is better recorded than most events of the early fifth age, if only because it was the first in which anyone thought to count the days.

In the spring of the famine's third year, the League marched into the lands of the Stone-Folk, passing in force beyond the fief of Enios for the first time in history. Though the Garatrach knew of their muster (it was quite large, and loud), the League crossed into the Gel basin in eleven days, faster than any of the Stone-Folk thought possible.

The Garatrach had yet to complete their muster. Their gathered army was smaller than that of the League, though it perhaps wouldn't have mattered, for the latter contained heroic figures of the age. Knowing this, the Garatrach host retreated towards the fortress called Leksè Ndaale⁶, which had been overlooking a holy site, though it was not yet entirely finished.

Nearby was a quarry, one which the Sellan army captured. Its stone was used to build ramps and take the unfinished walls of the fortress within a week of siege. Here, the League committed its greatest sin against the Stone-Folk: they slaughtered not just the warriors, but their families and children as well, and they did it upon the holy ground before the fortress.

This cruelty was unneeded, and intentional, and it hardened the hearts of the Stone-Folk. They rallied ever-harder to the banners of the Garatrach, driven by a zeal nearly as great as their Sellan foes.

Behind the Sellan host, what would have been an invasion had been turned on its head, as boats built on the Lake Gylia were hauled across the portage to the great lake that fed the Gel, and villages were emptied of Sellan shipbuilders for the sake of building a new fleet of conquest down through the Stone-Lands.

The lands of the Stone-Folk were put to the sword, their granaries seized to feed the armies of the League and Sellans of the Ander. Facing the ruin of their people, the Stone-Folk turned to dark and profane magics, as was their wont, and unleashed all manners of curse upon the Séll.

Perhaps their greatest (and certainly their longest lasting) was the Curse of the Wolf, from a nature god of the Stone-Folk, who had himself consecrated Leksè Ndaale and so had taken great umbrage at the befouling it saw under the League. Those of the invading army who had slain innocents on the sacred ground would find themselves taken by madness, and lycanthropy. As they were rabid dogs, one and all, they would pass along their disease like rabid dogs, and the potential to fall to it regardless would always live within the blood of their descendants.

By midsummer, the seat of the Garatrach would fall. The final confrontation was a thing of legend. It is said that the Stone-Folk sought to summon the Nightbringer, and nearly succeeded, but that the priest Kabax closed the gate before more than a single giant blackened hand could escape. The Lord of the West, ruler of the House of Garatrach and among the mightiest warriors in the world, was slain in single combat by the hero Cteneux atop the roof of the fortress, in a clash so great that it was visible for countless leagues, and destroyed much of the building.

Garatrach, perhaps because of its neighboring the Séll, was the mightiest and most war-like of the Stone-Folks's houses. With its fall came the fall of the entire Gel, and its enclosure by the east.

The victorious League was immediately consumed by its old habit of internal squabbling.

Enos took great glee in is victory, claiming the portage all the way to the Gel as part of its fief, and the army of Ros, great in size and wealth, also took the tiontaith's share of the grain. Borda, Xir, and Tiequax, always crushed between those two, but never fully lesser, risked finally falling behind them, and so grew bitter. Within a week, the victorious lords of the Ander were camped apart, and the League was poised to dissolve.

Enter Kabax, or perhaps re-enter, for she had been there for the entire campaign. Though she was no great warrior, nor even a shaman of incredible power, she had made great inroads with several. The Dwarf-Lord Cteneux, now proven the greatest living warrior, was ever her shadow, and the priests of n'Auré who had joined the campaign had deferred to her.

It was her name behind the defeat of the Stone-Folk's attempted demonic summoning, and behind the grain doles given out by the priests and clerics to the people of the Ander. The common Sellan regarded her, and not the five lords, as the one who had led this war, and who had freed them from famine.

The high lords knew this, but did not wish to yet-further wax the power and love she wielded. They favored themselves as candidates to rule the Stone-Lands, (and perhaps the others), but each knew that none of them could dare move to take it without insulting the other four. Perhaps Lord Cteneux could have taken the emptied seat of the Garatrach, and there were serious rumblings that he might, but he was soon recalled to the east, for his father had died and the kingship of Vara now fell to him.

It was Lord Ros Harnie who proposed to give the seat to the woman who could not found a house of her own. A priest, after all, had no heirs, and the seat would reopen after her death, giving all of them time to position themselves properly for a takeover.

The fortress of the Garatrach was a ruin, and so, in a final show of spite against the Stone-Folk, the crowning took place in the slightly-more-intact Leksè Ndaale, upon the very field in which the Séll had first sinned against the Stone. There she was crowned “Prince of the Ander and the Gel.” She would never be as powerful as the other princes, for the five great lords who sat there to see her crowned would continue on as her council, but with these lands under her remit she would be a mighty Prince indeed.

To the dismay of those selfsame lords, Prince Kabax would within two years marry a scion of the defeated Garatrach, securing her bloodline and settling the matter of her heirs. The lords, who had agreed to crown her precisely because a priest could found no house, were caught entirely off guard. By the time they understood what she had done, the marriage was sealed and the common people had celebrated it. To move against her would have shattered the League and handed the land back to the Stone-Folk, and so there was little they could do. She would go on to have four children, of the House of the Ander and the Gel. To the chagrin of many of the Stone-Folk, though they had little power to change this, the Sellans would often shorten this name to the House of the Ander.

Upon her death, Prince Kabax took with her her beloved mace, called Righteousness, and refusing her heir's desire to inherit it, such that it could become a family heirloom. Instead, she commissioned a dear friend, an accomplished smith, to forge a new mace. It would also be called Righteousness, and would act as a symbol of her heir's rule.

Thus it would be that every Prince of the Ander and the Gel would come to bear a mace called Righteousness, and that the name would itself become the heirloom.

Author's Notes

1. One would think that this would go without saying.
2. This is most certainly thanks to their name. However, "Dwarf" describes their size compared not to Sellans, but to the Goliaths of the Canyon, who traditionally held them captive as servants during the Dawn-Ages. In fact, skeletal records reveal that the average Dwarf of the fifth age to have been taller than their Sellan counterpart.
3. Uzil Afaexaed, in d'Inlya.
4. Naturally, even a modern Kanderite would use more archaic term uvau for "world," in this case, rather then the more modern kalye.
5. In materials dated to the fifth age and earlier specifically, the word nowadays used to mean "night" instead meant something closer to "deprivation~eternal darkness~apocalypse." Despite this semantic shift, the word continues to be translated, both traditionally and in this text, as "night," though contemporary speakers used a different word entirely to describe the dark period when one went to sleep.
6. This is nonsense, and the source used likely inserted the site to provide readers with a recognizable name. The settlement nowadays called Old Lexdale wouldn't even be home to a fortress for another 200 years, and most contemporary records agree that the region was ruled from Castle Garatrach for most of the fifth age.
7. Nac Ander Gelallo Ohariex, in Jésen.

Translator's Notes
Part IV's title is in a scuffed reconstruction of the substrate Language of the Stone-Folk, which was entirely lost save for a few words fossilized in the speech of Kander. The actual words that have been substratified are High Kanderite Raamondi, d'Inlya Indóllex, and the very word Garatrach, the latter as preserved through this story.

 

I'm very curious about what the stone-folk were actually like

I absolutely love this turn of phrase
10/10 would and will steal

It's all coming together

Using terminology like this is such a little thing, but it makes it so much more tied to the world and says lots without spelling it out

The fact that his first name is his house name reveals an interesting quirk of d'Inlya. Hmm

Overall I loved it, this bit specifically even more than I have lived the rest
It felt like reading a fantasy novel smashed with a semi-opionated news article, and the sheer amount of effort to design noble houses and land disputes and come up with a simultaneously fantastical and practical history is so good. It honestly reminds me of the Guide so much, it's just so good

Side note: I wonder if Faltach is a really garbled evolution of Kabax.

 

We'll get a bit of an indirect picture through their effects on the Kanderite Sellans, but I'm really sorry to report to you (and to every in-universe historian) that this trend of Sellan cultural imperialism/erasure is going to continue until they get their act together and start respecting their neighbors. We should expect to see this by (checks notes) uh. uh-oh.

Out of universe, this quirk dates to Finn's original Ancient Gavellian regularly sticking modifiers before the heads that they modify, e.g. Ne du Valeos du Ellach = "of the realms the war" & An Gavel Ellen = "to Gavel glory." House names developed from descriptors. So, say, for our new Princes, "[Name] of the Ander" would be Nac Ander [Name]. Adjectives can sit either before or after their main noun, since Jésen doesn't have super strict word order, but this general preference for Modifier-before-Modified will pretty firmly put in place the convention that Sellan family names come first.

"semi" is a bit much <3
dont trust any of these people

how do you like ppls posts multiple times. how do you communicate how happy comments like this make you feel. is it to be a mystery forever