Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

Ta'lia of the Seven Jewels

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Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« on: 15 August 2008, 01:02:21 »

I'll put it in the herbarium because I need to put it somewhere!

My English is a bit off this time, didn'toften know to use which word.. excuse me please

Firestar

aka Lavabloom, Limepetal, Rootstrider

Categorization
Flower, Animal? --> ? which one?

Basic Overview

This creature, endemic to the fiery slopes of the Norong‘Sorno, is most often perceived as a beautiful plant with six blazing red petals. However, some of the few brave people who have dared to venture in the dangerous places where this ‚plant‘ lives have reported, that they saw it walking on its roots towards others of its kind and behaving like if it would perform a mating ritual. Be that as it may, this creature is very important to the town of Thalambath, for it produces a liquid in its hornlike middle which it uses to attract small insects or other flying animals. This fluid is collected and processed to a substance, which is known as Thal-Glue, a paste which can be used widely. Its main usage is however - in diluted form - as a ‚solidification‘ for the famous Thalam bricks, the material most of the houses of Thalambath are build apart from the more expensive ones out of the black lavarock.

Usages

Nobody would dare to venture near the great lavastreams on the westside of the Norong‘Sorno, on ground still warm, because the lava just a ped underneath is still hot, if there would not flourish these remarkable creatures. Once there, it is relatively easy for a skilled collector to harvest the fluid inside the blooms. Supplied with gloves which reach right to the elbows, one needs just to pick the plant right under the bloom, where it sits on the ground, rooted tightly. Soft, but determinded shaking of the whole creature will result in a release of the roots from the ground and then the whole plant is put ‚headover‘ in a bag of water in which the fluid from the center of the bloom is solubilised. Then the flower is set back on the rock where the roots are taking a firm grip of the rock at once again. The procedure seems easy, but it is far from being a simple task. The reason is that the flower isn‘t passive like one would expect from a plant, but lashes about with both roots and petals, what caused more than one surprised man or woman to let it go. Though it is not very fast in ‚running‘ away and could be captured again, the fluid in the inner horn is lost nevertheless.

About twelve to fiveteen blooms can be ‚watered‘ until the water in the bag is saturated. Back on safe ground, the water-mix is collected in a great tank and slowly heated and simmered, till the liquid is reduced to a thick, sticky lime. This lime then is spread out to dry, till only tiny yellow crystals remain. Kept in a tight jar, where moistness has no access, it can be sold and stored any length of time.

To be used as a glue, one needs only to mix it with water again and slightly heated, till the crystals melt. To make solid bricks, another method is used:

A small amount of crystals (about ..) are mixed with handwarm water - for a medium quality with about a … Then in this enriched water, the sand of the preferred colour is mixed till a formable dough is made, not unlike children do it on any shore. This ‚dough‘ is however filed in forms - ashlars or cubes, depending which form of brick is wished. These bricks are left to dry. Finally dry, they are put in a brick oven with a medium hot fire and burned for a few hours, depending on the thickness of the brick. Cooled down, a solid brick is the result, however, it can still be easily carved with knives and similar tools. Intrigate ornaments can be created out of this ‚soft‘ stone. Once the desired result is achieved, the stone, or brick, goes back to the oven where it is again burned, however this time with a high temperature. What comes out is an nearly indestructible ‚stone‘, tougher than many natural stones, without any crevice or crack. Any further work with it is nearly impossible. Where the colour of the stone-brick did not change considerably during the first blaze (brand..??), the second darkens the colour, The longer the brick is in the heat, the darker it will be (and the more expensive).

… After first brand favourite of any sculptor, export in many towns..


« Last Edit: 15 August 2008, 18:34:50 by Talia Sturmwind »	Logged

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Bard Judith

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Re: Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« Reply #1 on: 15 August 2008, 07:03:51 »

I love this invention! We don't have nearly enough in the way of pastes, varnishes, and other such daily compounds. 'Glue' might be a bit 'modern-sounding'... but 'paste' and 'mucilage' aren't much better... hmmm...

I know this is still in development and you probably have all the answers in your head, but here's my initial curiosity breaking out. Is this glue rare? Can these Firestars be 'bred' or 'raised'? Is the product expensive (you do say it is popular and exported...) because it's only available in one, dangerous, location?

You would need to collect/harvest a great deal of it for brickmaking, so perhaps it should be used as more of a catalyst - mixed with some more common fluid in order to produce a reaction - to get enough actual substance for the bricks for even one house. I see that you use water as a solvent and storage device, which works well.

Is there a possibliity (dev view) that this protein-dissolving substance could react with the caseins in milk, say? "Firemilch Bricks" would be quite the building material!


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Ta'lia of the Seven Jewels

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Re: Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« Reply #2 on: 15 August 2008, 18:33:28 »

@Judy:

Thanks for the comments, will try to incorporate them.

Glue is a modern word as paste?

I'm inventing now a new word:

Lime - and limesimmer for those people who boil the substances slowly to make glue..

( ----> Leimsieder)


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Miraran Tehuriden

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Re: Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« Reply #3 on: 15 August 2008, 21:17:09 »

lime however, is already a very common term for a tree, a citrus fruit, a rock type, and a shade of green... won't that be verry confusing?


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Ta'lia of the Seven Jewels

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Re: Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« Reply #4 on: 15 August 2008, 22:56:53 »

Well, I think lime is an old word for glue, a relative of the old German word 'Leim', I'll guess you have it still in use in

lime = 'noun: a sticky adhesive that is smeared on small branches to capture small birds'

And where does the 'lime' come from in Limestone?


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Miraran Tehuriden

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Re: Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« Reply #5 on: 15 August 2008, 23:09:05 »

lime as a noun? only for a fruit i think.. in dutch that substance is called 'lijm' though, which is pronounced almost the same..

lime in limestone just comes from... lime. I found the Wiki listing all it's meanings..


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Ta'lia of the Seven Jewels

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Re: Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« Reply #6 on: 16 August 2008, 00:03:09 »

Why do you assume, that Wiki knows 'all' meanings? Mine is from the definition in Rhymezone. But I found something else - and I was right, it is connected with the old German word 'Leim' for glue:

The Online Etymology Dictionary
Search:

lime (1) Look up lime at Dictionary.com
"chalky mineral used in making mortar," from O.E. lim "sticky substance, birdlime, mortar," from P.Gmc. *leimaz (cf. O.N. lim, Du. lijm, Ger. Leim), from PIE base *(s)lei- "slime, slimy, sticky" (cf. L. limus "slime, mud, mire," linere "to smear;" O.E. slim "slime;" Skt. linati "adheres to, slips into, disappears;" Gk. alinein "to anoint, besmear;" O.Ir. leinam "I follow," lit. "I stick to"). Lime is made by putting limestone or shells in a red heat, which burns off the carbonic acid and leaves a brittle white solid which dissolves easily in water. Birdlime is a viscous sticky stuff prepared from holly bark and used to catch small birds. Limestone is first attested 1523.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=lime


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Miraran Tehuriden

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Re: Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« Reply #7 on: 16 August 2008, 00:17:18 »

funny, in holland birdlime was made from mistletoe

Anyway, we've been derailing a bit.. i was merely questioning the wisdom of choosing a word that already has many widely known meanings for your glue... while having santharian words for this is fun, and deriving them from real-life stuff even more so, it should not be made more confusing to people than absolutely unavoidable. Imho.


« Last Edit: 16 August 2008, 00:18:50 by Miraran Tehuriden »	Logged

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Ta'lia of the Seven Jewels

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Re: Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« Reply #8 on: 16 August 2008, 01:57:24 »

I do not insist on taking it, I just was looking for an alternative for the obviously modern sounding glue and paste. However, language doesn't care for easy understanding or even wisdom, there are many examples where exactly this is the case - you have the same word for very different meanings. If you take lime - it stands for lemonlike fruits and for a totally different tree and chalk, so what?

Any idea for another word? Would 'Thal' or Thlam ' for glue be easier?


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Re: Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« Reply #9 on: 16 August 2008, 02:17:07 »

I like 'Thlam'! But even variations on lime can work.. Like Lhim, Lim-me, Limmi, Laim......


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Avrah Kehabhra

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Re: Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« Reply #10 on: 16 August 2008, 09:24:19 »

Or the old German or old English, both of which I like....

Thleim?

T'lime? Tlyme? Lyme / Lymers? Your reference to birdlime is indeed apt - I caught that implication immediately.


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Re: Firestar - for Fox, overview + usage only!

« Reply #11 on: 16 August 2008, 18:33:05 »

I like it, Talia.

Though I'd have to repeat Judith's question here: Can they be cultivated on some kind of 'Firestar Farm' or somesuch? A couple people going out to harvest it would be okay for a small town but for one as large as Thalambath it'd seem that it'd be needed in vast quantities, moreso than natural hunting/gathering? could provide.

But I like what's here so far.