[culture] Map 40 - Ondeet

[jbgibson]

My mapping always makes me think of worldbuilding details, and those details make me think of more mapping. Some of these bits will be just how Ondeet folk do things, and some will be suggestions or offerings for others.

[jbgibson]

"Lead and silver taught the dwarves to write; steel and gold taught men to count."

Dwarves can identify fine variations in many ores by tasting rock samples. To try and trace a silver vein that way shortened many miners' lives, though, since silver is often admixed with lead. Dwarven miners developed excellent recordkeeping to know just where various metals had been found, at what quality, at which point in which tunnel, greatly decreasing the use of ore-tasting in siver/lead areas.

Human folk in ages past were always warring or preparing defense. Dwarven smiths were glad to provide weapons, but charged premium prices, and inexact measures of swords bought and sold brought down as many realms from bankruptcy as were conquered by those swords. So men became careful accountants, and still in Ondeet are the main merchants. The gold/counting connection remains in other proverbs - "The Gyeungdandju-si miller measures fair wagons, but not a biscuit more" (hundredweights of flour are exact to the last coin-weight - the smallest Ondeetien coin of gold is nicknamed a 'biscuit'). Steel/counting remains in a number of sayings as well: "The prince who counted his taxes before counting his swords was wealthy but a day", or "The spokes of a steel wheel count the wooden wheels replaced" (iron-rimmed wheels, actually, but those metal tires do make a wagon-wheel last eight or ten times longer than a plain wooden one, so the cost is a good trade).

Ondeetien interspecies relationships are pretty good. Admittedly dwarves and men share many similarities, and there's certainly no predator/prey relationship like in some nations. But even then, there's less strife than one might expect. Interdependence is buried right in the proverbs of both peoples - a shared saying is "Iron makes a poor loaf; wheat makes a poor blade". There's men who mine here, and dwarves who farm, but maybe the stereotypical differences actually support the good relations.

When it is said that "Dwarves go to meadhall aboveground, men go to church-hall underground" it isn't that dwarves are irreligious or men abstain from drink, just that people *notice* those two behaviors. Dwarves themselves will tell you they drink copious amounts wherever they are. One suspects that no matter what 'other' part of a tunnel-holme they go to for refreshment, it still feels very much 'at home', whereas venturing aboveground and stepping even a hundred meters to a tavern is 'a night out'.

As for the church-hall mention - it counts as 'underground' when a church is built of stone - ofttimes it will be the only building in a town that *is* stone. Dwarves and their completely underground chapels have lent a peculiar tone to Ondeetien human worship services though - a typical element of dwarven worship of whatever sect is the 'vocal organ'. Instead of (or alongside) melody-following by each singer, dwarves like to specialize each in 'their' one best foundation note, and a dwarven choir like a handbell choir plays a tune (or less often the words of a song) with these three on C, those two on C#, and Gunterkrigg over there has to carry D himself alone, as the other Ds are away. This would be a cultural thing alone, only underground it has developed its own architecture as well. Dwarven chapels have some odd angles and wall placements, to emphasize each note by resonance. A properly tuned Dwarvenkirk will resonate on all twelve tones of a scale, and affecionados of the music will speak of this hall being 'well-tempered' or that one 'just-intoned'. An incompletely-tuned Ondeetien Underchurch Hall might have painted on its wall "sing F six cents sharp, G nine cents flat", since it is considered more pleasing to have equal amounts of resonance than perfect-pitch tuned scales. The connection with human churches being 'underground' (of stone) is that dwarven masons will often be hired to construct man-churches, from a real or percieved better sensitivity to resonance tuning and pitch-reaction. A corollary of this construction and use style is there's not many tapestries nor carpets in Ondeetien churches - that would muffle the sound. So one gets another saying: "Hell is hot, church is cold". The meeting-hall might be weathertight, but all that stone is likely to be chilly, of a January sabbathday.

Casting bells tends to be a human thing in Ondeet. Those stone chapels may have belltowers, but one peals the bells before or after services - anchored to the stone structure, a tolling bell is likely to excite an uncomfortable number of those natural resonances in the worship space. One says that worship in Ondeet is in the bones, since the music reaches down into subaudible harmonics and vocal-organ hymns are felt in one's gut as well as one's ears.

The tuning of a stone enclosure makes Ondeetien navigation an auditory experience as well. Lighthouses are typically shaped to resonate at a primary and a secondary tone, driven by wave-motion airflow. Sound is harder to directionally locate than light, but in a fog, the hooting of a horn-beacon has saved many a coastal ship that would otherwise have driven ashore. There's a double-eartrumpet device made of brass that Ondeetien ships use to better discern direction, with a side effect of human hails from ship to ship are improved. Ondeetien ships abroad tend to carry a stock of these 'double-ears' for sale to foreign ships wanting to safely traverse Ondeetien waters.

IMG_4448.JPG

The two-tone pattern is noted on navigation charts, so one can hear exactly which port or headland one is approaching, even in bad weather. As with many Ondeetien norms, this is encapsulated in a proverb: "You don't have to be close enough to hear surf, to stay off the rocks". That could be a general 'steer well clear of danger' caution, only in Ondeet it also carries the reference to the horn-beacon lighthouses.

< out-of-story aside - I'll gladly offer this technology to any other Guildworld nation that wants to use it. It's not like it would be a hard effect to duplicate, once its principle was understood. If anybody has too many tone-deaf masons, we could even export a few perfect-pitch dwarven lighthouse masons to set you up. >

[Lingon]

Great background, I like all the proverbs and sayings. Maybe they could be included on the map somehow…

[jbgibson]

Ondeet Dichotomy

The very form of government is called a dichotomy - elements of two peoples joined in one realm, one polity. That so many of the sayings of Ondeetiens are the either/or form speaks of this joining. "Two is wisdom" cautions us to consider multiple views, to shift mere knowledge into wisdom, understanding, comprehension. It is significant that there s no one Ondeetien language - it takes that of the tunnelstriders plus that of the skystriders together to express all that is Ondeetien. To stray too far from the interface is considered somehow wrong - skyswimmers, those who would fly - why, that's dangerous. And groundswimmers - that alludes to the fact that water underlies almost all land, and to delve too deep can drown a dwarf, or a whole dwarven community.

"Otherworldly" can include meanings like 'holy', 'set apart', 'exceptional'... or just 'dead'. Dwarves tend to cremate their dead, and 'to stain the sky' is to pass on to afterlife, or just to die. Men tend to bury their dead, so 'to stain the ground' is for them both to pass out of sight, and to enrich the other realm. 'Bad dwarves make good [insert any vegetable]' refers to the old dwarven superstition that a dwarf who dies underground and stays there must be somehow cursed. Some of the great underground architecture stems from nothing more than a desire to rescue bodies from a cave-in, so they can be committed to the sky in proper cremation. To call a man 'a real jewel' when alive is attributing to him knowledge/wisdom beyond his born limits. To call a deceased man 'an eventual gem' is the fond imagining that he will be recycled by the earth in ages to come as some grand, wonderful treasure.

"It takes both to swim the sea" refers to a need for both man's wood and dwarves' metalwork to make a good ship. While few Ondeetien dwarves go to sea, it is said they do so in spirit in every ship's spike, every rope-pulley, even the lead ballast.

The orientation of each race can be seen right on maps. Dwarves prefer to name valleys rather than the rivers that typically run through them. Men will label a great plain as one feature; dwarves most likely differentiate the expanse's various 'valleys' 'or watersheds - even though a traveler might not be able to tell he was traveling 'over a ridgeline' between two such. Men describe their wealth in the flatland, where comes food and easy travel. Dwarves think of those fields of grain as but rude necessities, and the ragged ranges of wilderness above are the seat of their lives, their pleasant habitat. A human family who has come across ill fortune has 'met their downfall' while a failed dwarven enterprise is 'outcast'. The selfsame phrase might be polar opposites between the races - a glum man is 'downcast' while that is said of a dwarf optimistically seeking his fortune. When the same human family turns to better times things are 'looking up' where that might be said of a dwarven group facing impending doom and ruin. Someone of either race who misspeaks is said to have the other race's tongue in his mouth. Yet because each generally esteems the other highly, to thus say 'eh, he was talking dwarven-tongued' has more of a spin of possible correctness even though an utterance sounded wrong, than a derogatory or dismissive view of being stumble-tongued. That is a basis for a general positive attitude in Ondeet, this willingness to consider other views, other speech, other opinions. To be too set in one's ways or intolerant of others is said to 'be alone in one's head'. In that respect, the phrase in other lands for a traitor or confused person "he is double-minded' carries no ill meaning in Ondeet.

How do these differing peoples work as one in government? Well, there is a basic attitude of leaving one another alone for starters. One would not meddle in affairs not your own - and that stretches to neighboring communities of one's own kind as well as across the dirt/air boundary. One's own group provides administrative or legislative force, while a different group must be judges of either law or ruler. Many other nations' groups consider it unjust to be ruled by any other than *their* group. In Ondeet having a boss or lord or captain who is of the other race is counted useful, preferable, and honorable. The 'token dwarf' is not an insult, but maybe admission that say a farming town council doesn't HAVE a pool of dwarves to draw from, so that one old dwarven smith who retired there is all the diversity they could expect to attain. Variety for variety's sake is a weakness of Ondeetien society - in some such situations say the old smith might have no real value in governance, so he would be encouraged to nod sagely in meetings and slurp his ale, where those too eager to have all viewpoints represented might push their own old fellow into decisionmaking -- to their own detriment when he had never held a plow beyond the day he forged it.

Ondeetien folk are no angels - one stereotypically stubborn dwarf might still wind up in a drunken brawl with a stereotypically proud human - it's just that in Ondeet that's less likely to erupt into a town-wide dwarf vs. man feud than in some places across Guildworld. Mixing racial traits is not all sunshine and roses. In some nations one might fault a dwarf as overly touchy "but at least he's honest". In Ondeet perhaps he's touchy AND a brazen liar. Elsewhere a human might easily be labelled a staggering drunkard "but at least he's loyal". The same drunk in Ondeet might also be a venal backstabbing traitor. So a summary proverb: "None be pure, none quite right - natures blend, but also fight."

And because somebody will ask - Ondeetien Dwarves and Humans are not mutually fertile, so there isn't going to be some perfect hybrid. Best we just enjoy the differences and use them for strength.

[Falconius]

Nice world-building. That tonal stuff is very clever as are the tonal "lighthouses".