Glossary
This is the glossary
from the backmatter of Illumination. The compendium will expand on all
of this (as soon as I get it pulled together to post!).
- bonedays
- Three days a year (one in each season) when the dead are remembered and
offerings are left for the bonefolk. Observances differ regionally. Binders
often choose bonedays to harvest skins for vellum and parchment.
- bonefolk
- Mysterious fringe folk who dispose of the carcasses of people and animals,
leaving nothing behind but any metal or stone.
- Eiden Myr
- The world. Eiden is its animating spirit.
- Ennead
- Nine mages, in three triads, bound to protect Eiden Myr from the Great Storms
and other catastrophes. Also called the Nine, the Three of Threes. Live and
work in the Ennead's Holding.
- harvestmid
- Autumn (one side of midder). The three seasons are winter, summer, and midder.
- hein-na-fhin
- "One of three." A dangerous, powerful casting in which three mages combine
into one being.
- kadra
- An ideographic symbol enclosed in a triangle. Plural kadri.
- Longdark
- The winter solstice.
- Longlight
- The summer solstice.
- midder
- Considered one season, though it occurs in part between winter and summer
and in part between summer and winter, midder is the time between the other
two seasons.
- moon
- A month, which is twenty-seven days, or three ninedays.
- nonned
- Nine nines (81). Twice nine nonned is 1458 (Eiden Myr's equivalent of our
2000).
- parchment
- The skin of a sheep, lamb, goat, or kid used as a writing material.
- pethyar, also bet-jahr
- The spirit world.
- proxy
- A mage who works on behalf of the Ennead, either as a reckoner in the field
or a warder in the Holding.
- reckoner
- A proxy, trained in the Holding, sent into the field to manage other mages
and report to the Holding (through the proxy chain) on weather conditions.
Reckoners cast in threes but do not form permanent triads.
- sedgeweave
- Papyrus-like writing material made of laid strips of reeds.
- seekers
- Itinerant folk, suspicious of superstition and convention, who try to discern
large truths by applying rigorous logical inquiry to stories, legends, and
empirical observations. Considered crackpots. Associate loosely with each
other, usually arguing a lot. Put a silence on themselves when they need time
to think.
- sheddown
- Down collected where it's fallen.
- sowmid
- Spring (the other side of midder).
- spirit days
- The dark of the moon; corresponds to no phase of the moon (the moon's three
phases are waxing, full, and waning).
- stewards
- Non-mage support staff in the Holding.
- stones
- A game, something like a cross between marbles, Go, and table croquet. Played
without a grid, using pretty colored stones that would be called jewels elsewhere.
- threft
- A yard; contraction of "threefoot."
- triad
- Three mages (wordsmith, illuminator, and binder) who form a threesome to
do a casting; also, three mages who are cast triad by reckoners, to make their
threesome permanent.
- Ve Eiden
- The autumnal equinox.
- Ve Galandra
- The vernal equinox.
- vellum
- The skin of a cow or calf used as a writing material.
- warder
- A proxy, trained in the Holding, who remains in the Holding to assist the
Ennead in managing the weather and maintaining the physical premises of the
Holding itself. Warders form permanent triads.
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