Re: Sephiris: The Price of Peace - OOC

[Kalon Ordona II]

I'll update the character lists as soon as I can.
Feel free to post whenever you like, Erebus! ^^

[Digital Muse]

Hi Erebus and welcome to the awesomest RP in FOG!!

Like Blackrock, I have also been sadly lax about my posts and one is severely overdue for Mad Kate. I hope to complete that this week. Have faith guys!

[Kalon Ordona II]

Great to hear from you, Digi!

[Digital Muse]

*blushes, Thanks Kalon.

[Guest]

This role-play has been rather...slow lately. Not pointing fingers as it is just as much my fault as anyone elses! Took me a month or two to get my last post out I think. But hopefully having a new member will breathe some life back into this

Welcome to the world of Sephiris, Erebus!

[Digital Muse]

Yeah, I know...I'm going on 2 months now. I really want to get going again. I'd liek to set something of a love interest up for Kate. Doomed or not, it'd be fun, I think.

BTW does anyone fo into Sephchat anymore?

[Guest]

I don't because I never see any Seph people on when i'm on. And I usually only talked to Stion, but he is never on...

[Kalon Ordona II]

I might as well check sephchat, now that I sometimes go into the main chat room a little more often nowadays.

[Stion Gyas]

I never log in because I rarely, if ever, find anyone there. I'll set to auto-login, so whenever I'm on mibbit, I'll be in sephchat.

EDIT: Welcome to the game, Erebus. If you're wondering what sephchat is, it's where we used to meet semi-often to talk about the game. Go to mibbit.com/chat, select DarkMyst from the drop-down, type in your usename, and in the channel box enter #sephchat. Hopefully someone will be there.

Also, I'll be Rodrigus on there.

[Kalon Ordona II]

I'm tending more and more toward Mibbit nowadays, thanks to Stion. Mostly because it does notifications like "people said stuff." xD

Alrighty, looks like I have some extra free time today, so I'll see if I can get all the Sephiris updates done. Gotta make sure all the character lists are in order.

Edit:
There! all done for now! ^^

[Digital Muse]

There! Mega post done! Critique/corrections welcome!

About time, Digi! Dayum!

I know. *hangs head in shame.

*grins

[Kalon Ordona II]

oh goody! Can't wait to read it! ^^

Edit:
So Digi and I should think up something.
I guess since Kate is arriving later in the day, she'd probably miss Áirhath at the church. But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe she'll run into Gado instead. ^^

I'll have to remember to post that it's raining around the area of Barocula Lake. Yay for different weather!

[Blackrock]

Bugger me, I still have a lot to go on my post, I've just been spending my free time reading instead of writing. George Martin's works have got me hooked and won't let go. I'll try to deliver soon, promise!

[Kalon Ordona II]

No worries, Blackrock. Some of us are still on DAY 8. ^^

[Digital Muse]

Is #sephchat down?

[Blackrock]

Posted. Finally....

Kalon, let me know if the time-skipping is a problem, if it is I'll just edit those parts out.

[obfuscobble]

I feel like I'm walking into a party a bit late! Having finally made it through the story thus far, I'd like to say that this is the most impressive RP I have ever read through. It's practically a novel, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Then I read through all the OOC discussion. Styon Gygas', and heck, everyone's appendices are fantastic. Fluesopp's maps are awesome. Am I allowed to do maps as well? (I promise to have all the rivers correct)

A note on skin colours, re: that discussion of dragon skin tones from early on. Jared Diamond puts forth an interesting hypothesis that skin colours have very little to do with melanin, but rather rely on founder effect. That helps explain why some light skinned people have historically lived in places with a lot of sun, and some dark skinned people have historically lived in places that don;t get much sun at all, like the shaded and cloudy forests of New Guinea. Diamond suspects that the founder effect is at work here, as in the people who first arrive in an area are predisposed to find people who look like them sexy, and thus continue the genes for whatever colouration was present. Sexual selection for any type of colouration shouldn't be dismissed, especially when we look at birds. I know skin tone is a touchy subject, and Diamond isn't exactly a beloved scientist because of his (kinda kooky) axis-theory, but I figured I'd share what I've read. Feel free to tell me otherwise, because I love learning new things!

And now a note on languages! I love languages. And I love that languages have been used in the story thus far.

Dictionary: I like to use a free dictionary program to keep track of vocabulary in conlangs. Since I'll probably be making the dictionaries for the vocab thus far anyway, should I post the wordlists on my webspace for everyone to benefit from? All you'd have to do is download the small freelang dictionary program, and you could type in words to easily access the translation. I can update the word lists when new vocab comes out in RP too.

Sound questions: I have a few questions about the sounds in Elvish and Draconian. Since I read the words in my head, and sometimes read constructed languages out loud, I'd like to know I'm pronouncing things right.
Elvish has a set of double consonants: ll nn ss. Are those long sounds, held longer than the original consonant, or palletal sounds, ala ly ny sy? Is ll a lateral fricative as in Welsh? Elvish has a set of accented vowels and a digraph: ë ä ae é á í. I think the acute accents give stress to a syllable. Do the diereses stand for palletised vowels like in Russian, ala ye ya? Is ae the a in cat?
Draconic has a series of consonants with a ' or an h after them: t t' th, d d' dh, s s' sh, z z' zh, k k' kh, as well as c ch. Do these represent a Korean style system of stop - tense/emphatic stop - aspirated stop? Or do the ' represent emphasis or aspiration, while the +h combinations code for fricatices? Is c a "ts" and ch a "ch"?
Draconic's vowel choice is a bit strange, but strange in a cool way. Also, I think it's really cool that Elvish doesn't have any sounds with lip rounding or lip closing. And duodecimal base-12 number systems are awesome.

May I join the story?
I'd love to join the story in whatever way would be most helpful. I don't mind playing a villain or a temporary character. Many of the NPCs thus far are really awesome characters in their own right, too, but I'd hate to steal one of them.

[Guest]

You could have one of the NPC's in mine and Stion's group, if you want. I doubt Kalon will say you can't join...

I don't know the progress of Stion's next post, however, so I'm not sure how fast this will be moving along. I'm kind of stuck until he posts. And, not to mention, I kind of quit FOG until my life calms down, though with the rate this role-play moves I don't think it will be a problem for me to keep up with it.

But, as for the other groups, they seem to be moving along rather well. So I guess just take your pick

[Digital Muse]

I'm sure you could join too. If you have an eye on an NPC, just talk to the original writer to see if they're willing to let you play them. But, you might have more fun creating a character from scratch that speaks to you.

Regardless, Welcome!

[Blackrock]

If I were you, I'd go for a character of my own, but horses for courses, eh? Regardless, I'm sure Kalon won't turn down a new player, so I might as well say "welcome!"

Also, Digi - you, me and Stion need to have a little chat one of these days, regarding the meet-up between the Twins and Barin. What time would be manageable?

[Digital Muse]

I'll be online almost all weekend. You can catch me on MSN at mad_kate1645@yahoo.com or on AIM as silentspider60. I dunno where Stion is, however. I haven't heard a thing from him in months.

I'm mostly done with the post that will bring the Twins to the lake and that should be posted tomorrow at the latest. Then we can go from there.

[Guest]

I think I will send Stion a PM to ask him whats going on. I see him on every once in a while, but he doesn't usually say anything.

[Digital Muse]

I PM'd him too

[Kalon Ordona II]

As if I would say no. This RP is designed with provisions to painlessly ease players in and out -- the daystamp system we have, for example.
And after reading that post of yours.... PLEASE PLEASE JOIN!! xDDDD
This RP was MADE for people like you (me xD) who enjoy super-deep settings.

I'll try to answer all your questions. Here goes.

• You're free and encouraged to make any map you'd like from the raw material of the existing maps. I'd LOVE to see awesome-afied versions! xD Just keep in mind that few so far of the towns and cities have been labeled.
  
• The Diamond hypotheses/theory/interesting-alternate-supposition thingy would only be further evidence in favor of skin tones remaining as they are, because all these different races are staying within their own borders. I'd have to reread the discussion on skin tones, though, because I completely forgot what, if anything, was decided. Do you remember which page it was on?
  
• I love languages too! xD I hope you'll enjoy developing these with us.
  
• Before I let you put the language in some other form or somewhere else on the web, I'd want to know that it's safe. While some of the words have been made up by other people (most notably Reffy with a couple words in my Elvish), the system of the languages themselves is completely owned by me. I don't mind using a fancy tool so we can all find words easily, but you can understand my cautious hesitation. I like the idea, but I'd like to know some more details about it.
  
• The double consonants are held a little longer. The single /l/ would be more palletal than the /ll/, if I'm understanding it correctly. The exception is /rr/, which instead indicates a trill.
  
• The acute accents do, indeed, denote stress.
  
• I have no idea what a dieresis is... *googles* ...oh wow, so THAT'S what the two dots is supposed to do. I'm not really sure if they're used like that in my elvish -- I just have them there as a pronunciation guide. /ë/ rhymes with "say," but with the mouth still in the "eh" position. /ä/ sounds like the "a" in "father," and it's probably held out a tiny bit more than if it were a normal /a/. The normal /a/ in my elvish can be anywhere from "apple" to "talk."
  
• /ae/ is probably something between a long /a/ and a long /i/.
  
• (In the role-play, I just call the languages Human, Elf, and Dragon.) The apostrophes in Dragon do not indicate stops. Rather, their primary use is to denote the difference between, say, "d'h" and "dh". Whereas the former pronounces the /d/ and the /h/ separately, the latter combines them into a diphthong. If an apostrophe is not followed by an /h/, then it's simply a tiny little sound that technically creates another syllable but is not counted as such. That is to say, it's hard for humans to pronounce it without adding a syllable; the dragons manage things like that by using their more flexible tongue and throat, as well as their second set of vocal cords.
  
• In Dragon, /ch/ is the same as the English "ch." The /c/ is just a "k" sound made further back in toward the throat.
  
• Dragon only has three vowels because of the structure of dragons' longer mouths. They are physically unable to create long O and U sounds, mostly due to a lack of the kind lip muscles seen among humans and elves. Similarly, their sharp teeth prevent F and V.

As for joining the story, please feel free to create a new character, or more than one. I started with one of each--human, elf and dragon--just so I could demonstrate and revel in the differences between them all. xD

If you would like any suggestions, don't hesitate to ask.
Also, you may have noticed that there are a lot of unlabeled cities and towns on the map. This was purposeful, so that people could fill in one or two during the story. Well, there's that, but it's secondary. A stronger reason was that I wanted people to have the chance to easily create backstories for their characters by carving their own little niche: inventing a town or city, giving it some life, and having the character come from there.

Did I get everything?

[Guest]

Erebus created a character, but hasn't joined in the role-play yet. And obfuscobble has expressed interest, and I have been itching to make a new character... So it seems like a good idea, to me, for the three of us to join together and create a whole new plotline!

We should all get on sephchat sometime to talk about it, or just talk about it here or through PM's. Let me know if you two are interested. (As well as anyone else who might want to join in.)

[Digital Muse]

Twins post done. Yay!

[Guest]

I could create a new character, considering the ones I have now don't work very well in truth

[obfuscobble]

I know I don't have a character up yet, but my AIM is obfuscobble (just like my screen name here). Figured I'd post that since Digital Muse had hers up.
As for character making, ahhh so many choices, and so many delicious ideas.

Replies to Kalon:
map
For the map, I was thnking of creating something along the lines of this: (lazily copied from my other thread) except with dots for the cities and much larger. My thought was to create a really big jpg or gif with just the city dots and the larger landmark names that are canon on it, then anyone can put in more city names or notations as they crop up. I figure gif would be better because then it could be edited by anyone. This big gif could be scaled down to any size and still look pretty, as opposed to blowing up a tiny map. I can do it in colour too.

skin
Haha, I forget what page it was on! One of the middle ones. (unhelpful, sorry) But as I recall, the discussion went along the lines of "how dark does dragon skin get?" "Not very dark, because they live in a shady climate." "K thanks!" And as far as I'm concerned, that's just fine!

Languages
Thanks for answering my questions about the sounds and orthography! If I have time, I can make a cute little IPA chart for them. So addicting, the IPA.
A+ for keeping in mind dragon skull shape in their languages. That totally makes sense.
Although I should note (for future language fun times!) that a lot of languages have unrounded o and u sounds, like Korean, Vietnamese, and Turkish. The English "u" in "cup" is actually a type of unrounded o. Try rounding your lips when you say cup, and it'll come out close to "cope." Rounding the lips for "cut" turns it exactly into "caught." And if you knew that already, oh well: oops.

As for freelang dictionaries... Freelang is a dictionary program that you can download to your PC. If you use mac or linux, you can use the online version, but I don't know personally how that one works. The download version doesn't come with any viruses, and the site itself is safe to browse. All of the "wordlists" I've ever downloaded have been safe.

The dictionary allows you to create your own wordlist and freely edit any wordlist. That way, you can create your own dictionary. Any wordlist you make remains yours and only yours as long as it is on your computer. At no point does the dictionary put out your languges onto the web by itself. Pretty much, it's just like you said: a fancy tool for searching.

I was offering to write up the wordlists so far, then host them on my website. I would post them in a private folder, so that they would only be accessible by link. My site (www.kemetkids.com) is perfectly safe, and I regularly run virus checks. Unless someone has the link, they could not access the dictionary by accident, because I do not allow browsing on my site's directories. You could put a link to these dictionaries up on the OOC page, or PM them to new players.

Hope that helps!

[Guest]

I'm making a post now. Hopefully I can have it finished before I go to bed...but I'm not so sure. I'm also not sure what to do with this whole group with Stion's absence. I don't know what he is up to, or if he plans on continuing. He hasn't been on to respond to my PM. I may just need to rush things along and meet up with the rest of you guys at some point if he doesn't return.

Raptorman, if you want to make a new character somewhere, I'm all for it. It might take me a while to come up with a fitting character though.

Edit: My post isn't done yet. I need to fix it up quite a bit, and actually finish it. I would say it is about 90 % done.
Also, I'm upgrading the evil Lord Duiran to character status, which means I will have a character sheet incoming for him.

@Raptorman: Since Lord Duiran is my new new-character, you can either make something to go along with him or just start something new. I don't care either way. But Lord Duiran is an evil character who is bent on seeing Barthon's, and the rest of the Order of Gedrich's, demise.

You will see more about him in my upcoming post, since it is from his point-of-view. Hopefully it is as well-received as I'm aiming for.

[Guest]

I think I will make someone to go along with him.

Nice post by the way

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