— Shellwan Wah, First Order Naturalist and Head of the Guild Department of the Natural Creatures of Tamarran Continent, Naldrin City University

Harmon 28, SP~5,018

Of the most easily recognizable creatures on the Tamarran Continent the hammool are certainly one.  They are truly gigantic; adults are about 30 feet tall and as much as 20 feet sideways, and stand on eight sturdy legs that give them enormous strength and speed in open spaces.  A ubiquitous presence on the streets of our cities, hammool carry passengers from far-flung areas of the continent and haul great masses of materials on their mighty backs.  They are frequently found on the Great Roads of Tamarra, as well as on the highways and local roads that bind together our cities, our communities, and the great regions of the continent.

The common traveler’s understanding of hammool rarely goes beyond their tremendous size and strength.  This is a great loss, for they are beings of great subtlety and complexity. They are some of the great communicators of the continent, although they choose carefully when to communicate.  This short article will attempt to provide the reader with a deeper understanding of this wonderful fellow traveler in our rich land.

The hammool are, at their core, a highly social creature.  From an early age, they are educated by their parents to know the history and genealogy of their immediate family as well as their entire species.  The bonds to their family, tribe, and species are very strong, and their loyalty to fellow hammool leads them to do almost anything to protect their brethren when they find them in harm’s way.

Given this interest in genealogy, it is a great gift that hammool are born with a considerable faculty of memory.  They can quickly retain an enormous number of facts in great detail.  When hammool encounter others they’ve never met, they are very soon able to place each other in the grander scheme of the hammool tribes that live on Tamarra.  As the saying goes,  “hammool know no strangers.”  In addition to family history, hammool retain a considerable amount of information about non-hammool creatures and events that they have collectively witnessed over many years.  Our colleagues who are scholars of history have spent considerable time with hammool families to piece together their version of historical events.  I will leave that for a separate telling, however ¹.

I will conclude this all too brief introduction to the hammool with a comment on their ability to communicate with each other from a great distance.  It is common knowledge among those who ride the hammool ² or work closely with them that they seem to be able to communicate with each other with remarkable clarity even when they are hundreds of miles apart.  From a pragmatic viewpoint, this allows hammool to be aware of events that may be taking place many miles away on the Great Roads or in the fields and farmlands.  They seem to know, as a species, what is going on across the continent.  

The source of this ability is not understood, although there is no shortage of speculation.  One theory put forth by our cousins in the Mentarch’s Guild is that the hammool have a powerful natural connection with Mental Energy.  Investigations by members of the Guild Department of the Natural Creatures of Tamarran Continent have had mixed results in verifying this.  The more credible, though still unproven, theory is that the hammool have great sensitivity to the vibrations of the earth, and that they are able to communicate with each other by pounding the land in particular rhythms using their great bulk.  There is no doubt that their great weight combined with their amazing speed and agility create a thunderous noise as they move across the continent.  Many scholars and naturalists believe that this seemingly random pounding is not so random after all and is actually a “language” that can be heard (or felt?) by their brethren many miles away.   Some scholars go so far as to conjecture that the hammool’s sensitivity to vibrations in the earth gives them the ability to find locations of geoanatomical mouths of the continent ³.

As the reader can see, there is still much we do not know about these magnificent creatures.  If I may, I note that this author is currently working on a publication that will go into a full and complete story of the Hammool of the Tamarran Continent.

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¹  I would recommend “The History of the Middle Years of the Third Age of the Tamarran Continent” by the contemporary historian Belwith Nodwink, who has worked closely with a number hammoolites, those non-hammool beings who speak the hammool language.

²  This includes the well-known hammool rider ushen, who probably know hammool better than any other living being on Tamarra.

³  The Guild’s Division of Geographic and Fexoanatomical Surveys and Research (the DGFSR, or just “Geo”) can provide more information on these “mouths’ of the continent.

– Excerpt from A Floating Mountain: The Rise and Fall of the Gguro Dwarven Navy, by Jon Tamm, Travelling Bard and part-time Professor of Linguistics, Naldrin’s First University

The savvy reader may notice a number of instances in which Dwarven words are transliterated using double consonants – the most common being “kk” or “vv.” This notation is part of the Barlant transliteration system, far and away the most common style of Dwarven language transliteration in Tamarra. The double letters are what we call “intoned letters,” and they are but the tip of the iceberg in what many linguists consider the most complex language widely spoken on Tamarra.

The evolution of dwarven language is wrapped up inextricably in the long history of dwarven singing. This singing, as readers no doubt know, is known for its characteristic, shudderingly deep bass notes. Now, these sounds are used not only in song, but as part of the dwarven language; consonants can be pronounced either with or without an accompanying deep hum (the vvo) in a dwarf’s chest, changing the meaning of the letter as completely as if a human pronounced “p” instead of “m.” The word “kkanif,” for instance, denotes a certain type of metal-studded shield, while “kanif” denotes a particularly aggressive cat.

As if this weren’t enough, dwarven is also a tonal language (yes, “intoned” means something entirely different from “tonal.” Take it up with Barlant). There are four different tones with which any given syllable can be pronounced regardless of whether its letters are intoned (it shares this with the dwaheely language, which has six different tones). That is, the transliteration “kánif“ means that kan is pronounced in a rising tone, while if is in a neutral tone. This particular tonality denotes the aggressive cat we’ve mentioned before, but “käníf“ (kän in flat, low tone followed by íf in rising tone) is a type of ladle. “Kkánif“ (notice that we’ve now included the vvo!) is a meaningless nonsense word.

Any letter in Dwarven could technically be intoned, but some intonations are found only in antiquated texts written in First Dwarven or Middle Dwarven[1]. For instance, Modern Dwarven contains no instances of the intoned pp, gg, or hh (among others); the most common intonations by far are kk and vv. Contrast this with First Dwarven, when the intoned hh was not only a common consonant, but also used as a vowel. Nowadays the vvo has also taken on a significant slang usage; introducing a vvo in antiquated letters like hh has become quite fashionable among the youth, perhaps denoting a kind of disdain for historically proper speech.

The particularly tricky thing for non-dwarves learning Dwarven, aside from the tonality and its exceedingly complex grammar (the topic for another book entirely, let me tell you) and mastering the connotations of intoning some letters over others, is that no other races can truly pronounce the vvo. This is on a simple biological level; dwarves appear to have some adjunctive laryngeal structures that allow for the possibility of the vvo’s pronunciation. Some ushens and ishiris – even some humans – can imitate the sound passably enough that a dwarf would know they were trying to intone their letters, but this is far from the real thing. The major dwarven cities these days are quite cosmopolitan, and thus many dwarves have learned to accept the un-intoned dialect that foreigners are forced to speak – but any rural dwarven population will find mistakes like “kkanif”/”kanif” absolutely hilarious.

It is worth noting that there is an exception to this: Soman training has been shown to allow true pronunciation of the vvo. Indeed, there is a specialized subset of translators within the GERC. The Voices, as they are called, have all transcended Barriers in both Mental and Body; the former allows for fluency in a simply tremendous number of languages, while the latter allows them to modify their body to accurately pronounce race-specific sounds: the Dwarven vvo, the four sibilances of the Crawn language Szastak, and many more.

Lecture excerpt from “The Six Energies and their Uses for Non-channels,” by Mekreen Dronnaal, Professor, Naldrin’s First University

Wyrd energy? Yes, it’s pronounced WEERD, Quite useful. It powers automata, makes those Wyrd devices work – brings in quite a bit of business for non-channel craftsmen – you can even find it in some of the more luxurious homes on Tamarra. I know a Zweyjen down in the Third Tier who had a Wyrd-powered bedwarmer. Poor fellow never quite got over that move up from the South.

I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about what Wyrd Energy actually IS. We know how it behaves in certain situations, yes. We know it can be used to power automata, and give them at least some semblance of… well… understanding. Responsiveness to commands, at least; it’s difficult to judge whether their obedience constitutes true understanding, although, make no mistake, that’s a matter of hot dispute in certain philosophical circles. It can be used to create items that rival Energetic artifacts in terms of power, and as an energy source in more mundane creations. But, when you gets down to it, Wyrd is, well, Wyrd.

Some of my more… adventurous colleagues have gone so far as to suggest that Wyrd is an Energy, in the same way that The Six are Energies. But our current understanding of the world points to The Six as the solid core of all creation. It is my opinion that Wyrd, like Stillness, is something else, which we do not quite understand. Perhaps it’s an energy, with a small “e.”

[…Unintelligible interjection from the crowd…]

What’s that? Oh yes, well Ms. Lap-Kep does have some…interesting beliefs about The Six. Some theorize that Wyrd is a sort of corrupted mirror Energy, opposed to Physic. Just as Physic creates a logical and consistent set of rules for our material world, Wyrd produces a set of rules that are… coherent, at least. Regular. However, these rules fly in the face of the normal Physical laws that govern our world; it creates motion where things should be still, and stillness where there should be motion. It can transfer momentum with no physical contact of objects, and increment the energy of a system by an amount greater than the amount of Wyrd applied. By all accounts, it does not jibe with The Six.

Wyrd is a very powerful energy, whether it’s spelled with a big or a small “e.” And, if its current applications are any hint as to its future potential, it’s something that we will continue to research for some time to come. Now, where was I? Ah yes, the rise of Energetic commerce in the Jowea Region. You see, it all began with the Quiets..

Barriers, Understanding, and Oneness: the Path of the Guilds

Introduction to “Get to Know Your Guilds and their Energies,” by Mekreen Dronnaal, Professor, Naldrin’s First University

For Guild members, the purest form of progress is that of becoming one with one or more Energies. This is achieved through hard work, determination, and overcoming the various obstacles — known as barriers — encountered on their journey.

A barrier is a point in the path to Energetic oneness that is consistent for every Channel who treads the path. Barriers represent the culminating effort of understanding and unity with an Energy on one level before proceeding to the next.

Think of the path of Energetic oneness as a skyscraper. Overcoming the first barrier gets you into the first floor. While there, you can learn about that floor and what it has to offer. After exploring sufficiently, you can piece together the key code that will take you to floor two on the elevator. Once at floor two, you must explore and increase your understanding with a more complex layout, until you can finally move on to floor three. And so on, with each floor off the ground bringing the Channel into closer and closer communion with their chosen Energy.

Each barrier overcome brings a Channel closer to this oneness, and with each step the Channel becomes less “mundane” and more a creature of pure Energy. This is not to say that they cease to become who they are (it is theorized that this would eventually happen, but to date, no one has achieved such perfection), but rather that the nature of their being changes, giving them supernatural powers and abilities related to the Energy in which they have just overcome this barrier.

Overcoming barriers is an achievement honored by the Guilds, and they distinguish specific stages of achievement for those who have overcome certain barriers.  

• Novices: Those having overcome the first, second, or third barriers are considered Novices. They are early in the stages of learning the Energetic arts, and are generally the object of gentle encouragement by more nurturing Guild members. About 45% of trained Guild members are Novices.*
• Initiates: Those having overcome the fourth, fifth, or sixth barriers are considered Initiates. At this stage, the Channel has proven their worth as a full “adult” in the Energetic arts. Initiates are afforded the basic amount of respect you would show to a fellow Guild member. About 40% of trained Guild members are Initiates.*
  

  Spirit Energy

• Adepts: Those having overcome the seventh, eighth, or ninth barriers are considered Adepts. Overcoming these barriers is a definite achievement, and not something most Guild members reach. They are generally afforded a great deal of respect by fellow Guild members, and some take on the responsibility of helping other, less accomplished Channels in their own journeys. About 10% of trained Guild members are Adepts.*
• Masters: Those having overcome the 10th, 11th, or 12th barriers are considered Masters. Only a few people ever accomplish this task of surmounting the most difficult of barriers to their Energetic oneness. Masters are given not just respect, but outright deference by their fellow Guild Members. They are consulted on matters of great import, and sometimes bestow great honor on a Channel by taking them as their pupil.
  About 4% of trained Guild members are Masters.*
  

  Shadow Energy

• Prodigies: Of course, there are those who have overcome even more difficult barriers, and these are known as Prodigies. While they are few and far between, they are not unheard of. Many Enforcers, the Guilds’ elite police and strike force, have overcome the 13th barrier — and higher — in their primary Energy. Channels of this status are regarded as celebrities amongst most Channels, and even some non-Guild folks, depending on how they use their powers and whether their fame has spread. Such celebrities include Pirixchi, the de facto leader of the GERC; Gill, a continent-class Umbrist and thief; and Ordon of the Whirling Blades, current Commander of the Enforcers. And, of course, the amazing Mayor of Tarnath, Sympriono Ka’nesi. About 2% of trained Guild members are Prodigies.*

*Not all Channels are registered with the Guilds, so these numbers are approximate.

— Shellwan Wah, First Order Naturalist and Head of the Guild Department of the Natural Creatures of Tamarran Continent

Somans have known how to change their own biological sex for at least centuries, and perhaps millennia; the first known record of a transition dates back to SP~4,590, when the crawn Soman by the name of Tasziik changed her body from that of a biological male to that of a female. This transitioning is not uncommon among the Guild; hundreds of Somans have recorded their own experiences of moving between male and female bodies (and everywhere in between). It is curious, therefore, that in some societies this still seems to carry a stigma. Ushen culture, for instance, tends to regard gender nonconformity as a perfectly normal occurrence, whether it manifests as a desire to physically transition sex or simply identifying oneself as a gender other than what they were given at birth with no desire to transition. Crawns are notoriously less accepting – which makes Tasziik’s historic change all the more impressive.

Lhavernu Sah is, to my knowledge, the only Soman on Tamarra who specializes in Energetic reassignment of gender in others – and he is one of only a dozen or so Somans who know the process of transitioning bodies other than their own.

Lhavernu, an ushen from the tribes of Lochuum, was originally trained as a medic at no less prestigious a university than Naldrin’s First. He was among the top students in his class, and worked as a healer in the city for years – until one day a patient came to him with a problem he had never faced before. This patient, a female-bodied kamari, had never felt that he had, as he put it, the “right body.” He felt he was a man despite having traditionally female anatomy.

Lhavernu thought that he could solve this problem. That he could do what no one had ever done before: change the biological and Energetic sex of someone other than himself.

The process of creating the Power to transition a stranger’s body was long and full of technical jargon. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that Lhavernu was resoundingly successful. The technique is difficult to master, but can consistently change the physical body from one sex to another over the course of mere months. And while the population of Somans who have spent the time to learn the procedure is still small, it’s growing every year.

Dorromee Ado, Grand Scholar, the Six Guilds, Tarnath

Kalkix 53, SP~5,021

The Guild Energetic Research Coalition: the GERC. That’s pronounced “GURK,” mind you, not “JERK.” Yes, we have heard the jokes. They’re hilarious.

The GERC is the largest research coalition on the Tamarran continent – and that is giving generous credence to the other “organizations” that float around like so many seeds in the wind. We fund over 15,000 researchers, once you’ve tallied up all the lab assistants and principal investigators and whatnot.

We developed the hammool tracks that now allow for fast travel across the continent. We mapped the spines of the oceans, developed the Sound that allows living folks to travel safely in undead Quiets, and crafted the thread-thin metal okku that stabilizes buildings to five, six, even ten stories across the continent. We are the force of innovation on Tamarra, the wind of scientific change. Ahem – but I wax poetic. You must not let me carry on like this or we’ll be here all day!

Speaking to some specifics, the GERC is an umbrella entity comprising many teams:

• Acquisitions and Archival: A&A is the backbone, in many ways, of our organization. A&A maintains our libraries, our archives, our records of all known Powers and – thanks to the NGEI’s work (see below) – records of Spells.
• Mnemonic Division and Division of Geographic and Fexoanatomical Surveys and Research: The mnemonic division is a special group. They are our memory, our eyes and ears on expeditions. Mnems (“nems”), as we call them, train to use Mental Energy so that they forget nothing – absolutely nothing. They accompany Sojourner expeditions to provide accurate records of everything that happened, and transmit it Energetically into the minds of others. We call the other organization mentioned here, the Geo, because lord is that full name a mouthful. They explore the world around us, mapping and exploring. In one of  their most thrilling projects, they have explored the so-called “Spines” of the seas to our east and west. Someday we may find a way to travel beyond these, to other continents – if they exist.
• Energetic Experimental Group: The curious heart of the GERC. EEG researchers fiddle and tinker with the very core of the Six Energies, developing new Powers and new technologies at a tremendous rate.
• Materials Development Division: The stolid older sister of the EEG, the MDD works with physical materials. They developed okku (see above), and they work with the EEG constantly to craft previously unseen wonders.
• Non-Guild Energetic Investigation: The division that preserves and records the culture of the few remaining sorcerer tribes. The Guilds have a spotty history with the sorcerers, to put it lightly. I personally think the NGEI is the absolute least they could do. Terma Lanchet, who leads it, is an absolute wonder, though.
• Sojourners: The explorers, with a dash of derring-do and a dash of sheer insanity on top of a heap of genius. These intrepid adventurers go where most will not to explore the farthest reaches of our world.
• Voices: The Voices occupy an interesting niche within the GERC. Diplomats, linguists, and cultural savants all in one, they developed as a kind of independent branch within the Guilds. They were lumped into the GERC through a stroke of chance, and now provide services both to us specifically and to the Guilds as a whole.
• Wyrd Division: The Wyrd Division is… a little off. They work with that intriguing energy called Wyrd that seems to be some sort of breakdown product of Shadow, or perhaps Shadow catalyzing breakdown of the other five Energies. Kemmfaut Lap-Kep, who leads it, is among the most bizarre and yet most brilliant people I have had the pleasure to meet.

And of course, within these divisions are subdivisions and smaller teams and little groups of inquisitive minds prying into every force you’d care to mention that the Ten were not meant to meddle with. Around the GERC we don’t take well to limitations.